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'1 


THE    PRACTICAL    STUDY    OF 
LANGUAGES 


Sweet's  practical  Stubs  of  ^Languages. 

By  Dr.  Henry  Sweet  of  Oxford,  England.     xiv  +  22o 

pp.  i2tno.  $1.50,  net. 
The  body  of  this  book  is  given  to  the  discussion  (rein- 
forced by  telling  illustrations)  of  practical  problems  which 
daily  confront  the  teacher  of  languages — the  choice  and 
proper  use  of  grammar  and  dictionary,  the  selection  of 
reading  matter,  the  use  of  translation,  composition,  con- 
versation, etc.  An  exposition  of  the  phonetic  basis  of 
language-study  occupies  the  first  few  chapters. 

JBreal's  Semantics. 

Studies  in  the  Science  of  Meaning.     By  Prof.  Michel 
Bkeal  of  the  College  de  Fiance.    lxvi+336pp.    i2mo. 
$2.50,  net. 
A  work  on  the  science  of  Significations,  as  distinguished 
from  the  science  of  Sounds  (Phonetics).     A  knowledge  of 
this  science  is  of  vital  importance  to  the  study  of  Compara- 
tive Philology.  It  shows  how  individual  and  national  char- 
acter may  be  deduced  from  an  examination  of  language, 
and  discusses  hundreds  of  interesting  allied  topics.      The 
style  is  pleasing,  and  the  enjoyment  of  the  book  requires 
no  previous  philological  training. 

lOtilliatns'   ©ur   Dictionaries,   anb   ©tber 
jEngltsb  Slanguage  tropics. 

By  Ralph  Olmsted  Williams.  With  four  plates. 
174  pp.      i2mo.     $1.25,  retail. 

WUlltams'  Some  Questions  of  <3ooo 
Bnglisb. 

Examined  in  Controversies  with  Dr.  Fitzedward  Hall. 
234  pp.  i2ino.  Si. 75,  retail. 
Prof.  Albert  S.  Cook  of  Yale,  in  the  Journal  0/  Ger- 
manic Philology  :  "  When  Mr.  Williams'  previous  book  ap- 
peared, I  said  of  it,  '  There  is  a  lightness  of  touch,  a  reserve 
of  manner,  a  crispness  of  style,  a  seasoning  of  humor,  an 
absence  of  hammering,  which  ought  to  make  the  book  much 
more  popular  than  I  dreamed  a  book  on  such  a  subject 
could  be,  without  suffering  some  species  of  degradation.' 
In  the  present  book  these  qualities  are  equally  marked." 

JBalg's  JEur=Brgan  IRoots, 

With  their  English  Derivatives  systematically  arranged 
and  compared  with  Corresponding  Words  in  the  Cog- 
nate Languages.  Vol.  I.,  with  an  index  of  all  English 
derivatives.     8vo.     $15.00,  net,  special. 

IRambeau  &  {passes 
Cbrestomatbie  ipbonetique. 

French   Reader,    with    Phonetic   Transcriptions.      By 
Prof.  A.  Rambeau  of  Johns  Hopkins   and  Prof.  Jean 
Passy  of  Paris,     xxx  -f-  250  pp.     8vo.     $1.50,  net. 
Some  hundred  pages  of  easy  French  in  common  orthog- 
raphy, and  on  opposite  pages  the  same  matter  in  phonetic 
script  like  that  in   Paul   Passy's  Maitre  Phone'tique,  with 
an  introduction  explaining  the  method  of  using  the  text. 

HENRY  HOLT  &    CO. 

29  W.  23d  St.,  New  York       378  Wabash  Ave.,  Chicago 


THE    PRACTICAL    STUDY 

OF 

LANGUAGES 

A  GUIDE   FOR  TEACHERS   AND   LEARNERS 


BY 

HENRY    SWEET,    M.A.,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

CORRESPONDING    MEMBER    OF    THE    MUNICH    ACADEMY    OF    SCIENCES 
FORMERLY    PRESIDENT   OF  THE   PHILOLOGICAL  SOCIETY 


With  Tables  and  Illustrative  Sluotations 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 
1900 


PREFACE 

This  book  is  intended  as  a  guide  to  the  practical  study  of 
languages.  Its  object  is,  first,  to  determine  the  general 
principles  on  which  a  rational  method  of  learning  foreign 
languages  should  be  based,  and  then  to  consider  the  various 
modifications  these  general  principles  undergo  in  their  appli- 
cation to  different  circumstances  and  different  classes  of 
learners. 

The  want  of  such  a  guide  has  long  been  felt.  All  the 
works  on  the  subject  that  have  hitherto  appeared  have  either 
been  short  sketches,  or  else  have  only  dealt  with  portions  of 
the  subject,  such  as  the  teaching  of  classical  or  modern 
languages  in  schools. 

I  have  given  careful  attention  to  these  questions,  but  have 
by  no  means  confined  myself  to  this  branch  of  the  subject. 
I  have  rather  endeavoured  to  give  a  comprehensive  general 
view  of  the  whole  field  of  the  practical  study  of  languages,  as 
far  as  lay  in  my  power.  I  have  not  only  given  special  sections 
on  the  learning  of  dead  languages  and  of  Oriental  languages, 
but  have  also  added  a  chapter  on  the  methods  of  deciphering 
writings  in  unknown  languages  and  of  dealing  with  unwritten 
forms  of  speech;    for  although  such  investigations  have  not 


vi  PREFACE 

always  a  directly  practical  aim,  their  methods  are  wholly 
practical.  This  part  of  the  book  ought  to  be  welcome  to 
travellers  and  missionaries,  who  often  feel  great  perplexity 
when  confronted  with  the  difficult  problem  of  reducing  an 
illiterate  language  to  writing  and  analysing  it  grammatically. 
The  same  remarks  apply  with  equal  force  to  dialectologists,  the 
results  of  whose  labours  are  often  worse  than  useless  through 
their  want  of  proper  method.  Another  class  of  students  whom 
I  have  had  specially  in  view  are  self-taught  learners  of  foreign 
languages,  who  often  not  only  waste  time,  but  fail  to  attain 
their  aim  through  following  bad  methods  and  using  unsuitable 
text-books. 

My  examples  are  taken  from  a  variety  of  languages,  partly 
to  avoid  one-sidedness  of  treatment,  partly  to  interest  as  many 
different  classes  of  readers  as  possible. 

In  discussing  methods,  I  have  drawn  my  illustrations  from 
those  books  which  I  know  best.  The  time  has  not  yet  come 
for  an  historical  survey  and  critical  estimate  of  the  vast  and 
increasing  literature  of  linguistic  pedagogy,  either  of  that 
portion  of  it  which  deals  with  generalities  and  criticisms  of 
methods,  or  that  still  larger  portion  which  carries  out — or  pro- 
fesses to  carry  out — these  general  principles  in  practical  text- 
books— reading-books,  grammars,  text-editions,  '  methods,'  etc. 

In  giving  warning  examples  of  mistakes  into  which  learners 
may  fall,  I  have  confined  myself  to  those  made  by  foreigners 
in  speaking  and  writing  English,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
the  mistakes  made  by  English-speakers  in  the  use  of  other 
languages,  though  in  themselves  equally  instructive  and 
amusing,  would  have  no  point  for  the  majority  of  my  readers. 


PREFACE  vii 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  purely  practical  learner,  my 
treatment  may  perhaps  appear  not  only  too  comprehensive,  but 
also  too  ideal.  He  will  ask,  What  is  the  use  of  recommending 
a  method  of  study  which  cannot  be  followed  because  of  the 
want  of  the  requisite  helps  in  the  way  of  text-books  ?  But  this 
is  precisely  one  of  the  objects  of  my  book.  My  object  is  both 
to  show  how  to  make  the  best  of  existing  conditions,  and  to 
indicate  the  lines  of  abstract  research  and  practical  work  along 
which  the  path  of  progress  lies. 

In  the  present  multiplicity  of  methods  and  text-books,  it 
is  absolutely  necessary  for  real  and  permanent  progress  that  we 
should  come  to  some  sort  of  agreement  on  general  principles. 
Until  this  is  attained — until  every  one  recognizes  that  there 
is  no  royal  road  to  languages,  and  that  no  method  can  be 
a  sound  one  which  does  not  fulfil  certain  definite  conditions 
— the  public  will  continue  to  run  after  one  new  method  after 
the  other,  only  to  return  disappointed  to  the  old  routine. 

My  attitude  towards  the  traditional  methods  is,  as  will  be 
seen,  a  mean  between  unyielding  conservatism  on  the  one 
hand  and  reckless  radicalism  on  the  other.  There  are  some 
fundamental  principles  on  which  I  insist,  whether  they  are 
popular  or  not,  such  as  basing  all  study  of  language  on 
phonetics,  and  starting  from  the  spoken  rather  than  the  literary 
language.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  reader  will  find  that 
while  I  agree  with  the  Continental  reformers  in  condemning 
the  practice  of  exercise-writing  and  the  use  of  d  priori  methods 
such  as  Ahn's,  I  refuse  to  join  with  them  in  their  condemnation 
of  translation  and  the  use  of  grammars. 

As  regards  my  qualifications  for  the  task,  I  have,  in  the 


viii  PREFACE 

first  place,  acquired  a  considerable  knowledge  of  a  variety  of 
languages  of  different  structure ;  and  in  studying  them  I  have 
always  paid  as  much  attention  to  the  practical  as  to  the  purely 
philological  questions  that  have  suggested  themselves.  I  may 
also  claim  the  merit  of  having  made  the  scientific  historical 
study  of  English  possible  in  this  country  by  the  publication 
of  my  numerous  practical  helps  to  the  learning  of  the  older 
stages  of  our  language,  especially  Old  English.  At  the  same 
time,  my  Elementarbuch  des  gesprochenen  Englisch  has  done 
something  towards  making  genuine  spoken  English  accessible 
to  foreigners.  I  have,  lastly,  had  considerable  experience  in 
lecturing  and  teaching  in  connection  with  various  branches 
of  the  study  of  languages,  so  that  this  work  is  as  much  the 
outcome  of  varied  practical  experience  as  of  scientific  theorizing. 
The  first  draft  of  this  work  was  written  out  as  far  back 
as  1877.  but  for  various  reasons  was  never  published,  although 
an  abstract  of  it  appeared  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Philological 
Society  for  1882-4,  under  the  title  of  The  Practical  Study  of 
Language.  I  need  hardly  say  that  the  present  work  is  not 
merely  an  expansion  of  these  earlier  efforts,  but  is  the  result 
of  more  matured  thought  and  wider  experience,  so  that  it  is 
an  entirely  new  book,  except  that  the  chapter  on  'mind- 
training  '  is  taken  without  alteration  from  the  first  draft. 

Oxford, 

February,  1899. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Phonetic  Symbols xv 


CHAPTER   I 

THE  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

Practical  and  Theoretical  Study I 

Necessity  of  General  Principles I 

Good  and  Bad  Methods           2 

CHAPTER   II 

PHONETICS 

Phonetics  not  an  Innovation 4 

Fallacy  of  Imitation 5 

Fallacy  of  Minute  Distinctions 5 

Methods  of  Study  :  Organic  and  Acoustic 6 

Isolation  of  Sounds 7 

Analysis  of  the  Formation  of  Sounds 7 

Deducing  Unfamiliar  from  Familiar  Sounds 7 

Relation  of  Native  Sounds  to  Sounds  in  General 8 

CHAPTER   III 

PHONETIC   NOTATION 

Unphonetic  Spelling  ;  Nomic  Spelling II 

Fullness  of  Transcription 12 

Relation  of  Nomic  to  Phonetic  Spelling 13 

Remedies  :  Additional  Marks  and  Letters 14 

Principles  of  Phonetic  Notation 16 

National  and  International  Basis 1 7 


x  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A  Universal  Alphabet  Unpractical 18 

Significant  Sound-distinctions 18 

Superfluous  Sound-distinctions 19 

Modifiable  General  Basis 19 

Non-Roman  Basis  :  Organic  Alphabet 20 

Analphabetic  Basis 22 

The  Alphabetic  Basis  the  Best 24 

Universal  Alphabet  not  suited  for  Connected  Writing 25 

Superiority  of  Phonetic  Shorthand 26 

Modified  Nomic  Spelling 28 


CHAPTER  IV 

FOREIGN   ALPHABETS 

Transliteration  of  Foreign  Alphabets 30 

Orthographic  Transcription 32 

Nomic  Pronunciation 34 

Learning  a  Foreign  Alphabet 36 

CHAPTER  V 

VARIETIES  OF  PRONUNCIATION 

Artificial  Pronunciation 38 

Degrees  of  Colloquialism 40 

Standards  of  Pronunciation 42 

Pronunciation  of  Rare  Words 43 

CHAPTER  VI 

GENERAL   STUDY   OF   PHONETICS 

Apparatus  :  Diagrams,  Models,  Phonograph 45 

Experimental  Phonetics 46 

Phonetic  Dictation 47 

Advantages  of  Phonetics 48 

CHAPTER  VII 

BEGIN  WITH  THE   SPOKEN  LANGUAGE 

The  Spoken  the  Source  of  the  Written  Language 50 

Practical  Considerations 51 


CONTENTS  xi 
CHAPTER   VIII 

DIFFICULTIES  OF  LANGUAGE 

PAGE 

External  Difficulties 54 

Relations  to  the  Native  Language 54 

Internal  Difficulties 56 

Phonetic  Difficulties 61 

General  Difficulty  of  each  Language 63 

The  Real  Difficulty  is  in  the  Vocabulary 66" 

All  Languages  Equally  Difficult 66 

CHAPTER   IX 

GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  METHOD 

Language  Only  Partly  Rational 70 

Irrational  Combinations  in  Language  :  We  Cannot  Speak  by  Rule    .  71 

The  Arithmetical  Fallacy 73 

Isolated  Phenomena  of  Language  :  Grammar  and  Dictionary  ...  74 

The  Natural  Method 75 

Residence  Abroad 76 

Speaking  Foreign  Languages  at  Home 78 

Natural  Aptitude 79 

National  Aptitude 82 

One  Method  for  All 83 

The  Historical  Method 86 

The  Crude  Form  System 87 

The  Etymological  Fallacy 88 

Comparison  with  Cognate  Languages 89 

Comparative  Philology  Sometimes  Useful 90 

Chance  Resemblances  between  Languages 91 

Borrowed  Words 91 

CHAPTER  X 

SPECIAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  METHOD 

Rules  ;  Mechanical  Isolation 93 

Analysis  and  Synthesis 98 

Paradigms 99 

Learning  Lists  of  Words 100 

Detached  Sentences ;  Context 100 

Association 103 


xii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Memory;  Repetition no 

Interest "2 

Relations  between  Texts,  Grammar,  and  Vocabulary 115 

Stages  of  Progressive  Method  :  Irregularities 1 18 

CHAPTER  XI 

GRAMMAR 

Accidence  and  Syntax 124 

Formal  and  Logical  Syntax 125 

Grammar  and  Dictionary 126 

Accidence  and  Syntax  Taught  Together 126 

Stages  of  Grammatical  Analysis 128 

Grammar  Learnt  Unconsciously 129 

Evils  of  the  Separation  of  Syntax  from  Accidence 131 

Examples 131 

Paradigms 135 

Fullness  of  Treatment 138 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  DICTIONARY  ;    STUDY  OF  THE  VOCABULARY 

Scope 141 

Pronouncing  Dictionaries 144 

Fullness 145 

Conciseness 146 

Surveyability 147 

Meanings 148 

Quotations 149 

References 149 

Grammatical  and  Other  Information 150 

Arrangement,  Word-orler 151 

Logical  Dictionary 153 

Study  of  the  Vocabulary  of  a  Language 1 58 

CHAPTER    XIII 

TEXTS  ;    THE   READING-BOOK 

Classification  of  Texts 164 

Connectedness 169 

Length 170 


4 


CONTENTS  xiii 

PAGE 

Clear  Context 172 

Limited  Vocabulary 173 

The  Most  Necessary  Elements  given  First 174 

Familiarity  of  Subject 175 

Simplicity  of  Language 177 

Variety 178 

Gradation  of  Difficulties 178 

Interest 179 

Literary  Texts 181 

Condensed  Treatises 183 

Subordination  to  Form ;  Grammatical  Texts 184 


CHAPTER  XIV 

RELATIONS  BETWEEN   DIFFERENT  LANGUAGES;    TRANSLATION 

Thinking  in  the  Foreign  Language  ;  Not  Translating 198 

Translation  from  the  Foreign  Language 199 

Translation  into  the  Foreign  Language  ;  Exercises 202 

Free  Composition  ;  Question  and  Answer 206 

Visualizing 209 

CHAPTER  XV 

CONVERSATION 

Phrase-books 212 

CHAPTER   XVI 

literature;   LITERARY  COMPOSITION 

Composition 220 

CHAPTER  XVII 

DEAD  LANGUAGES 

External  Difficulties 223 

Normalizing 224 

Pronunciation 225 

Teaching  through  the  Literature 227 

Cross-associations  with  Modern  Languages 227 

Dead  Methods  in  Modern  Languages 230 


xiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

ORIENTAL   LANGUAGES 

PA<~.E 

Adherence  to  Native  Methods ,     .  233 

Texts 234 

CHAPTER   XIX 

GENERAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

Time  and  Effort .     .  236 

Results  ;  Stages  and  Degrees  of  Knowledge 238 

Epitomes  and  Note-books 242 

The  Subject-matter  of  the  Texts 243 

Teaching  Children 244 

Methods  for  Adults  ;  Self-instruction 247 

CHAPTER  XX 

ORIGINAL  INVESTIGATION 

Decipherment 256 

Help  afforded  by  Comparative  Philology 259 

Decipherment  a  Practical  Problem 262 

All  Text-reading  Implies  Originality 263 

Text-editing  :  Original  Research 263 

Investigations  of  Unwritten  Speech 264 

Collecting  Materials 267 

Principles  of  Collecting 271 

CHAPTER  XXI 

mind-training ;  classical  and  modern  languages  ....  273 

Appendix 279 


PHONETIC    SYMBOLS 


Phonetic  writing  enclosed  in  (   ).      Length  marked  by  doubling,  strong 
stress  by  (  •  )>  medium  by  (  :  ),  and  weak  by  ( - )  before  the  syllable. 


;  then. 


a  as  in  'cut; '  also  short  of  (aa). 

aa     ,,     'father.' 

a      ,,     French  '  pate.' 

a      ,,     French  'sans.' 

a      ,,     'bird.' 

ae     ,,     'man.' 

c  =  front  stop. 

5  as  in  German  '  ich.' 

d  —  emphatic  Arabic  d. 

*\ 

•  r 

e  as  in  French  '  ete  ; '  also  =  (e). 

e       „     '  men.' 

e      ,,     French  '  vin.' 

a      ,,     'sofa.' 

6  ,,     'men,  air.' 

3      „     '  German 'sagen.' 

h  =  Arabic  throat-sound  ha 

i  as  in  French  '  fini ; '  also  =  (*')• 

i     ,,     'fin.' 

i     „    Welsh  'dyn.' 

j    „   'you.' 


J  =  front  stop  voice, 
k  =  deep  Arabic  k. 
\h  =  Welsh  //. 
n  as  in  Italian  'ogni.' 
o      ,,     French  '  eau ;'  also  =  (p). 
o      ,,     German 'stock;' also 'not.' 
6      ,,     French  'son.' 
ce    ,,     French  'peur.' 
ce     ,,     French  'un.' 
o      ,,      'not ' ;  '  saw.' 
0      ,,     French  'peu.' 
s  =  Arabic  emphatic  s. 
f  as  in  'she.' 


vfh 
x 

y 

3 


'  thin.' 

French  '  sou  ; ' 
'good.' 
'what.' 

German  '  loch. 
French  'une.' 
'  rouge.' 


also  =  (»). 


THE    PRACTICAL    STUDY 
OF  LANGUAGES 

CHAPTER  I 
THE   STUDY   OF    LANGUAGES 

Practical  and  Theoretical  Study 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  enlarge  on  the  distinction  between  the 
practical  and  the  theoretical  study  of  languages — between 
learning  to  understand,  read,  speak,  write  a  language  on  the 
one  hand,  and  studying  its  history  and  etymology  on  the  other 
hand. 

But  it  is  important  to  realize  at  the  same  time  that  the 
practical  study  of  languages  is  not  in  any  way  less  scientific 
than  the  theoretical. 

The  scientific  basis  of  the  practical  study  of  languages  is 
what  may  be  called  '  living  philology,'  which  starts  from  the 
accurate  observation  of  spoken  languages  by  means  of  phonetics 
and  psychology,  and  makes  this  the  basis  of  all  study  of 
language,  whether  practical  or  theoretical.  The  opposite  of 
living  is  'antiquarian'  philology,  which  regards  the  present 
merely  as  a  key  to  the  past,  subordinating  living  to  dead 
languages  and  sounds  to  their  written  symbols. 

Necessity  of  General  Principles 

The  first  thing,  therefore,  is  to  determine  the  general  prin- 
ciples on  which  the  practical  study  of  languages  should  be 
based.  It  is  evident  that  if  these  principles  are  to  be  really 
general,  they  must  be  based  on  a  survey  of  the  whole  field  of 

I  B 


2       THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

languages  :  that  is,  while  giving  due  prominence  to  French  and 
German,  as  being  the  two  modern  languages  most  generally 
studied  in  this  country,  we  must  not  neglect  the  remoter 
languages,  confining  ourselves,  of  course,  to  an  examination  of  a 
sufficient  number  of  typical  ones.1 

Having  settled  our  general  principles,  the  next  thing  is  to 
consider  what  modifications,  what  special  combinations  of  them 
may  be  required  under  special  circumstances.  It  is  evident 
that  a  method  which  suits  an  inflectional  language  may  require 
modification  when  applied  to  a  language  of  a  different  character; 
that  learning  to  read  a  dead  language  is  a  different  process 
from  learning  to  speak  a  living  one ;  that  self-instruction  and 
teaching  children  in  school  require  different  text-books,  and 
so  on. 

As  the  tendency  at  present  is  to  exaggerate  rather  than  under- 
rate these  differences,  I  shall  confine  myself  as  much  as  possible 
to  general  principles,  leaving  special  modifications  and  applica- 
tions to  be  made  by  others.  It  would,  indeed,  be  presumptuous 
in  me  to  say  much  about  such  subjects  as  the  school-teaching 
of  languages,  in  which  I  have  no  practical  experience — at  least 
as  teacher. 

I  am  not  much  concerned  with  such  questions  as,  Why  do 
we  learn  languages  ?  Is  learning  languages  a  good  or  a  bad 
training  for  the  mind  ?  Is  Greek  a  better  training  for  the  mind 
than  German  or  mathematics  ?  I  start  from  the  axiom  that  as 
languages  have  to  be  learnt,  even  if  it  turns  out  that  the  process 
injures  the  mind,  our  first  business  is  to  find  out  the  most 
efficient  and  economical  way  of  learning  them. 

Good  and  Bad  Methods 

The  plan  of  this  book  involves,  to  some  extent  at  least,  a 
criticism  of  existing  methods. 

In  this  connection  it  is  significant  to  observe  that  though 
there  is  great  conservatism  in  scholastic  circles — as  shown  in 
the  retention  of  antiquated  text-books,  in  the  prejudice  against 
phonetics,  and  so  on — there  are,  on  the  other  hand,  many  signs 
of  dissatisfaction  with  these  methods. 

1  Besides  English,  French,  and  German,  I  have  drawn  my  illustrations 
chiefly  from  those  remoter  languages  of  which  I  have  some  practical 
knowledge,  that  is,  Sanskrit,  Welsh,  Old  Irish,  Finnish,  Arabic,  and 
Chinese. 


THE  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES  3 

This  dissatisfaction  is  strikingly  shown  by  the  way  in  which 
new  '  methods '  are  run  after — especially  the  more  sensational 
ones,  and  such  as  have  the  good  fortune  to  be  taken  up  by  the 
editor  of  some  popular  periodical. 

But  none  of  these  methods  retain  their  popularity  long — the 
interest  in  them  soon  dies  out.  There  is  a  constant  succession 
of  them  ;  Ollendorff,  Ahn,  Prendergast,  Gouin — to  mention  only 
a  few — have  all  had  their  day.  They  have  all  failed  to  keep  a 
permanent  hold  on  the  public  mind  because  they  have  all  failed 
to  perform  what  they  promised  :  after  promising  impossibilities 
they  have  all  turned  out  to  be  on  the  whole  no  better  than  the 
older  methods. 

But  the  return  to  the  older  methods  is  only  a  half-hearted 
one  :  even  Ollendorff  still  has  his  adherents.  In  fact,  things  are 
altogether  unsettled,  both  as  regards  methods  and  text-books. 
This  is  a  good  sign  :  it  gives  a  promise  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest.  Anything  is  better  than  artificial  uniformity  enforced 
from  without. 

The  methods  I  have  just  mentioned  are  failures  because  they 
are  based  on  an  insufficient  knowledge  of  the  science  of 
language,  and  because  they  are  one-sided.  A  method  such  as 
Gouin's,  which  ignores  phonetics,  is  not  a  method  :  at  the  most, 
it  gives  hints  for  a  real  method.  Gouin's  '  series-method '  may 
in  itself  be  a  sound  principle,  but  it  is  too  limited  in  its  appli- 
cations to  form  even  the  basis  of  a  fully  developed  method. 

A  good  method  must,  before  all,  be  comprehensive  and 
eclectic.  It  must  be  based  on  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
science  of  language — phonetics,  sound-notation,  the  grammatical 
structure  of  a  variety  of  representative  languages,  and  linguistic 
problems  generally.  In  utilizing  this  knowledge  it  must  be 
constantly  guided  by  the  psychological  laws  on  which  memory 
and  the  association  of  ideas  depend. 


CHAPTER   II 

PHONETICS 

The   main   axiom   of  living   philology  is   that   all   study   of 
language  must  be  based  on  phonetics. 

Phonetics  is  the  science  of  speech-sounds,  or,  from  a  practical 
point  of  view,  the  art  of  pronunciation.  Phonetics  is  to  the 
science  of  language  generally  what  mathematics  is  to  astronomy 
and  the  physical  sciences.  Without  it,  we  can  neither  observe 
nor  record  the  simplest  phenomena  of  language.  It  is  equally 
necessary  in  the  theoretical  and  in  the  practical  study  of 
languages. 

Phonetics  not  an   Innovation 

The  necessity  of  phonetics  has,  indeed,  always  been  tacitly 
recognized — even  by  its  opponents.  Even  such  a  simple 
statement  as  that  '  English  nouns  take  -es  instead  of  -s  in 
the  plural  after  a  hiss-consonant '  involves  elementary  facts 
of  phonetics  ;  the  terms  '  vowel '  and  '  consonant,'  '  hard '  and 
1  soft,'  all  imply  phonetic  analysis.  What  the  reformers  claim 
is  not  that  phonetics  should  be  introduced — for  it  is  there 
already — but  that  its  study  should  be  made  efficient  by  being 
put  on  a  scientific  basis. 

In  fact,  phonetics  is  almost  as  old  as  civilization  itself.  The 
Alexandrian  grammarians  were  not  only  phoneticians — they 
were  spelling-reformers !  Few  of  those  who  mechanically 
learn  the  rules  of  Greek  accentuation  by  way  of  gilding  the 
refined  gold  of  their  scholarship  have  any  idea  that  these  to 
them  unmeaning  marks  were  invented  by  the  Alexandrian 
grammarians  solely  for  the  purpose  of  making  the  pronunciation 
of  Greek  easier  to  foreigners.  The  Romans,  too,  were  pho- 
neticians :  they  learnt  Greek  on  a  phonetic  basis,  as  far  as 
their  lights  allowed  them.  The  Sanskrit  grammarians  were 
still  better  phoneticians.  It  is  the  unphonetic,  not  the  phonetic 
methods  that  are  an  innovation. 

The  efficient  teaching  of  phonetics  is  impeded  by  two 
popular  fallacies. 


PHONETICS  5 

Fallacy  of  Imitation 

The  first  of  these  is  that  pronunciation  can  be  learnt  by 
mere  imitation.  This  is  as  if  fencing  could  be  learnt  by  looking 
on  at  other  people  fencing.  The  movements  of  the  tongue  in 
speaking  are  even  quicker  and  more  complicated  than  those  of 
the  foil  in  fencing,  and  are,  besides,  mostly  concealed  from 
sight.  The  complicated  articulations  which  make  up  the  sound 
of  such  a  French  word  as  ennui  cannot  be  reproduced  correctly 
by  mere  imitation  except  in  the  case  of  an  exceptionally  gifted 
learner. 

Even  in  the  case  of  children  learning  the  sounds  of  their 
own  language,  the  process  is  a  slow  and  tedious  one,  and  the 
nearer  the  approach  to  maturity,  the  greater  the  difficulty  of 
acquiring  new  sounds.  Indeed,  the  untrained  adult  seems  to  be 
often  absolutely  incapable  of  imitating  an  unfamiliar  sound  or 
even  an  unfamiliar  combination  of  familiar  sounds.  To  the 
uneducated  even  unfamiliar  syllables  are  a  difficulty,  as  we  see  in 
1  familiarizations  '  such  as  sparrow-grass  for  asparagus.1  Even 
those  who  devote  their  lives  to  the  study  of  languages  generally 
fail  to  acquire  a  good  pronunciation  by  imitation — perhaps 
after  living  ten  or  twenty  years  in  the  country  and  learning  to 
write  the  language  with  perfect  ease  and  accuracy. 

Fallacy  of  Minute   Distinctions 

The  second  fallacy  is  that  minute  distinctions  of  sound  can 
be  disregarded — or,  in  other  words,  that  a  bad  pronunciation 
does  not  matter.  The  answer  to  this  is  that  significant  dis- 
tinctions cannot  be  disregarded  with  impunity.  By  significant 
sound-distinctions  we  mean  those  on  which  distinctions  of 
meaning  depend,  such  as  between  close  and  open  e  in  French 
pecker,  pecker.  We  see  from  this  example  that  significant 
sound-distinctions  may  be  very  minute — or  at  least  may  appear 
so  to  an  unaccustomed  ear.  To  a  native  ear  they  always  seem 
considerable.  Thus  to  English  people  the  distinction  between 
the  vowels  of  men  and  man,  /lead  and  had,  seems  a  very  marked 
one,  while  to  most  foreigners  it  seems  but  a  slight  one  :  many 
Germans  are  apt  to  confound  head,  had,  hat  under  the  one 
pronunciation  het. 

1  I  knew  a  child  who  used  to  make  giraffe,  facsimile,  chiffonier  into 
edgiruff,  face  smile,  and  shove  anear  respectively. 


6      THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

Nor  can  we  tell  a  priori  what  sound-distinctions  are  significant 
in  a  language  :  a  distinction  that  is  significant  in  one  language 
may  exist  as  a  distinction  in  another,  but  without  being  signifi- 
cant, or  one  of  the  sounds  may  be  wanting  altogether.  Thus  in 
ordinary  Southern  English  we  have  no  close  e  at  all ;  while  in 
the  North  of  England  they  have  the  close  sound  in  such  words 
as  name  without  its  being  distinctive,  for  it  is  simply  a  con- 
comitant of  the  long  or  diphthongic  sound  of  e. 

Experience  shows  that  even  the  slightest  distinctions  of 
sound  cannot  be  disregarded  without  the  danger  of  unin- 
telligibility.  The  friends  of  the  late  GuSbrand  Vi'gfiisson,  the 
well-known  Icelander,  still  remember  how  he  used  to  complain 
that  the  country  people  round  Oxford  could  hardly  be  made 
to  understand  him  when  he  asked  for  eggs  :  '  I  said  ex — I 
ought  to  have  said  airx.'  Here  the  remedy  was  almost  worse 
than  the  disease;  and  yet  what  suggested  eks  to  an  English 
ear  differed  only  from  the  correct  pronunciation  in  having 
whisper  instead  of  voice  in  the  first  as  well  as  the  second 
consonant ! 


Methods  of  Study  :  Organic  and  Acoustic 

The  first  business  of  phonetics  is  to  describe  the  actions  of 
the  organs  of  speech  by  which  sounds  are  produced,  as  when 
we  describe  the  relative  positions  of  tongue  and  palate  by 
which  (s)  is  produced.  This  is  the  organic  side  of  phonetics. 
The  acoustic  investigation  of  speech-sounds,  on  the  other  hand, 
describes  and  classifies  them  according  to  their  likeness  to  the 
ear,  and  explains  how  the  acoustic  effect  of  each  sound  is  the 
necessary  result  of  its  organic  formation,  as  when  we  call  (s)  a 
hiss-sound  or  sibilant,  and  explain  why  it  has  a  higher  pitch — a 
shriller  hiss — than  the  allied  hiss-consonant  (/)  in  she. 

It  is  evident  that  both  the  organic  and  the  acoustic  sense 
must  be  cultivated  :  we  must  learn  both  to  recognize  each 
sound  by  ear  and  to  recognize  the  organic  positions  by  which 
it  is  produced,  this  recognition  being  effected  by  means  of  the 
accompanying  muscular  sensations. 

We  all  carry  out  these  processes  every  day  of  our  lives  in 
speaking  our  own  language.  All,  therefore,  that  we  have  to  do 
in  the  case  of  familiar  sounds  is  to  develope  this  unconscious 
organic  and  acoustic  sense  into  a  conscious  and  analytic  sense. 


PHONETICS  7 

Isolation  of  Sounds 

The  first  step  is  to  learn  to  isolate  the  sounds  and  to  keep 
them  unchanged  in  all  combinations  and  under  all  the  varying 
conditions  of  quantity  and  stress  (accent).  Thus  the  learner 
may  lengthen  and  isolate  the  vowels  in  pity,  and  observe  the 
distinction  between  them  and  between  the  vowels  of  ///  and 
peat. 

This  method  of  isolation  is  a  great  help  in  learning  foreign 
sounds.  A  teacher  of  French  who  has  learnt  to  cut  up  such  a 
word  as  ennui  into  (aa,  nyy,  ii)  will,  without  any  knowledge  of 
phonetics,  be  able  to  give  his  pupils  a  much  better  idea  of  the 
pronunciation  of  the  word  than  by  repeating  it  any  number  of 
times  undivided. 

Analysis  of  the  Formation  of  Sounds 

The  next  step  is  to  learn  to  analyze  the  formation  of  the 
familiar  sounds.  This  analysis  must  be  practical  as  well  as 
theoretical.  It  is  no  use  being  able  to  explain  theoretically 
and  to  hear  the  distinction  between  a  breath  consonant  such 
as  (f)  and  the  corresponding  voice  consonant  (v),  unless  we  are 
able  to  feel  the  difference.  Let  the  beginner  learn  to  isolate 
and  lengthen  the  (f)  in  life  and  the  corresponding  (v)  in  liver 
till  he  can  feel  that  while  (f)  is  articulated  in  one  place  only,  (v) 
is  articulated  in  two  places — not  only  between  lip  and  teeth, 
but  also  in  the  throat.  If  he  presses  his  first  two  fingers  on 
the  '  Adam's  apple,'  he  will  feel  the  vibration  which  produces 
the  effect  of  voice  in  (v),  which  vibration  is  absent  from  (f). 
If  he  closes  both  ears,  he  will  hear  the  voice-vibration  very 
distinctly. 

Deducing  Unfamiliar  from  Familiar  Sounds 

The  great  test  of  the  practical  command  of  such  a  distinction 
as  breath  and  voice  is  the  power  it  gives  of  deducing  un- 
familiar from  familiar  sounds.  Repeat  (vvff)  several  times  in 
succession,  and  try  to  carry  out  a  similar  change  with  the  voice- 
consonant  (1),  and  the  result  will  be  the  Welsh  (1/;)  in  llan.  Again, 
to  get  the  German  or  Scotch  (x)  in  loch  it  is  only  necessary  to 
exaggerate  and  isolate  the  '  off-glide '  of  the  (k)  of  the  English 
lock.  Often,  indeed,  mere  isolation  is  enough  to  deduce  an 
apparently  unfamiliar  sound.     Thus   the  peculiar   obscure  a 


8       THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

and  peculiar  (s)-sound  in  Portuguese,  as  in  amamos,  are  simply 
the  first  element  of  the  diphthong  in  English  how  and  the 
second  element  of  the  English  (t/)  in  chin,  which  is  distinct 
from  the  (/)  in  Jish,  being  really  a  sound  intermediate  between 
(/)  and  (s). 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  hearing  such  an  unfamiliar 
sound  as  (1//)  is  a  hindrance  rather  than  a  help  to  the  beginner, 
who,  hearing  a  sound  which  is  partly  a  hiss  and  partly  an  (1), 
tries  to  do  justice  to  the  acoustic  effect  by  sounding  separately 
the  familiar  English  hiss  (b)  in  think  and  an  ordinary  voice 
(1),  so  that  he  makes  (L$an)  into  (blsen).  This  is  an  additional 
argument  against  the  imitation  fallacy. 

But,  as  already  remarked,  the  acoustic  sense  must  be 
thoroughly  trained,  for  in  many  cases  the  acoustic  does  help 
the  organic  analysis.  'Listen  before  you  imitate'  is  one  of 
the  axioms  of  practical  phonetics. 


Relation  of  Native  Sounds  to  Sounds  in 

General 

Before  beginning  the  study  of  foreign  sounds,  it  is  important 
to  get  a  clear  idea  of  the  relations  of  our  own  sound-system  to 
that  of  sounds  in  general,  and  especially  to  learn  to  realize 
what  is  anomalous  and  peculiar  in  our  own  sound-system. 
Thus,  when  the  English  learner  has  once  learnt  to  regard  his 
(ei)  and  (ou)  in  such  words  as  name  and  so  as  abnormal 
varieties  of  monophthongic  close  (ee,  oo),  he  will  find  that 
much  of  the  difficulty  of  pronouncing  such  languages  as  French 
and  German  will  disappear  ;  he  will  no  longer  have  the 
mortification  of  betraying  his  nationality  the  moment  he  utters 
the  German  word  so.  Indeed,  speakers  of  the  broad  London 
dialect  in  which  (ei)  and  (ou)  are  exaggerated  in  the  direction  of 
(ai)  and  (au)  often  become  unintelligible  in  speaking  foreign 
languages.  Two  young  Englishmen  abroad  once  entered  into 
conversation  with  a  French  cure,  and  one  of  them  had  occasion 
to  use  the  word  beaucoup  ;  the  Frenchman  was  heard  repeating 
to  himself  (bauky)  and  asking  himself  what  it  meant.  Each 
language  has  its  own  '  organic  basis,'  and  the  organic  bases  of 
French  and  English  are  as  distinct  as  they  can  well  be.  Hence 
the  importance  of  a  clear  conception  of  the  character  of  each 
basis,  and  their  relations  to  one  another. 


CHAPTER  III 

PHONETIC   NOTATION 

Next  to  analysis,  the  most  important  problem  of  practical 
phonetics  is  that  of  sound-notation,  or  spelling  by  sound. 

The  first  and  most  obvious  advantage  of  a  phonetic  notation 
is  that  the  learner  who  has  once  mastered  the  elementary 
sounds  of  the  language,  together  with  the  elementary  symbols 
of  the  notation  he  employs,  is  able  to  read  off  any  phonetically 
written  text  with  certainty,  without  having  to  burden  his 
memory  with  rules  of  pronunciation.  To  such  a  student  the 
distinction,  for  instance,  between  close  and  open  e  and  o  in 
Italian  offers  no  difficulties  :  he  learns  from  the  beginning  to 
pronounce  each  word  with  the  correct  vowel. 

Another  advantage  of  a  phonetic  notation  is  that  as  the 
learner  sees  the  words  written  in  a  representation  of  their  actual 
spoken  form,  he  is  able  to  recognize  them  when  he  hears  them 
with  comparative  ease — or,  at  any  rate,  he  is  better  prepared  to 
recognize  them.  Most  English  people,  when  they  first  go  to 
France,  are  unable  to  understand  a  word  of  the  language  when 
spoken,  however  well  they  may  be  able  to  read  it.  This  is 
simply  because  the  unphonetic  French  spelling  they  are  used  to 
represents  not  the  spoken  French  of  to-day,  but  the  French 
that  was  spoken  in  the  sixteenth  century — being  a  very  bad 
representation  even  of  that.  But  if  a  foreigner  has  learnt  to 
decipher  such  written  forms  as  (aksebo)  or  ( a  k  s  e  bo  !), 
(ktkstksa,  kjtski),  he  would  certainly  be  better  prepared  to 
understand  them  when  spoken  than  if  he  had  first  to  translate 
them  in  his  mind  into  (aa  ka  ss  ei  bou)  or  something  of  that  kind. 

Phonetic  notation  helps  the  ear  in  many  ways.  The  spoken 
word  is  fleeting,  the  written  word  is  permanent.  However 
often  the  learner  has  the  elements  of  such  a  word  as  ennui 
repeated  to  him,  it  is  still  a  help  to  have  the  impressions  of  his 
car  confirmed  by  association  with  the  written  symbols  of  such  a 


io    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF    LANGUAGES 

transliteration  as  (aanqi).  If  the  phonetic  notation,  instead  of 
confirming,  corrects  an  impression  of  the  ear,  its  utility  becomes 
still  more  manifest. 

Teaching  by  ear  alone  throws  away  these  advantages.  It  is 
certain  that  even  the  quickest  linguist  is  helped  by  phonetic 
notation.  Even  if  it  were  not  absolutely  required  for  the 
purpose  of  saving  him  from  mishearings  and  mispronunciations, 
it  would  still  serve  to  strengthen  his  hold  of  the  spoken  word. 

The  consideration  that  the  written  word  is  permanent  is 
enough  to  refute  the  objection  sometimes  made  to  phonetic 
spelling,  namely,  that  it  makes  the  language  more  difficult  to 
understand.  It  is  clear  that  if  the  learner  cannot  solve  such  a 
riddle  as  (aksebo)  at  his  leisure,  he  will  certainly  not  be  able  to 
solve  it  when  he  has  only  the  fleeting  impression  on  his  ear  to 
rely  on. 

Unphonetic  Spelling ;    Nomic  Spelling 

The  question  of  phonetic  notation  is  complicated  by  the  fact 
that  the  traditional  or  '  nomic '  orthography  of  most  languages 
is  only  partially  phonetic.  But  even  French  and  English  are 
not  wholly  unphonetic.  Even  in  English  we  find  hundreds  of 
such  spellings  as  send,  if,  not,  which  even  the  most  radical 
spelling-reformer  need  not  alter,  together  with  many  others 
which  would  require  only  a  slight  change  to  make  them  wholly 
phonetic.  Indeed,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  a  wholly  unphonetic 
system  of  spelling — one  in  which  every  word  was  written  with 
an  absolutely  arbitrary  combination  of  letters — would  be  too 
much  even  for  the  most  retentive  memory. 

But  even  a  little  unphoneticness  may  cause  a  good  deal  of 
confusion  and  perplexity,  as  we  see  in  the  case  of  the  two 
pronunciations  of  Italian  e,  o,  z  and  of  Welsh  y — a  language 
whose  spelling  is  often  said  to  be  entirely  phonetic.  The  want 
of  stress-marks  in  English,  and  still  more  in  Russian,  is  one  of 
the  greatest  obstacles  to  learning  to  speak  these  languages,  and 
sometimes  gives  rise  to  ludicrous  misunderstandings.  Thus 
a  German  staying  in  an  English  house,  when  summoned  to 
dinner,  told  the  servant  that  he  was  '  occupied '  and  could  not 
come  yet ;  but  he  put  the  accent  in  the  wrong  place,  the  result 
of  which  was  that  the  assembled  company  was  startled  by  the 
information, '  Please,  sir,  Dr.  A.  says  he's  a  Cupid  ! '  As  Dr.  A. 
was  short  and  stout,  amazement  soon  yielded  to  amusement. 


PHONETIC    NOTATION 


n 


So  difficult  is  the  Russian  stress,  that  an  Englishman  in  Russia, 
when  asked  by  another  Englishman  who  was  learning  Russian 
to  give  him  some  simple  rules  for  the  accent,  told  him  to  try 
and  find  out  what  syllable  the  accent  ought  to  fall  on,  and 
then  to  put  it  on  some  other  syllable.  Although  German 
stress  is  on  the  whole  regular,  yet  such  a  distinction  as  that 
between  Hibersetzen,  '  leap  over,'  and  iiber'setzeti,  '  translate,'  is 
puzzling  enough  to  the  beginner. 

Fullness  of  Transcription 

Besides  unphonetic  writing  which  is  positively  misleading, 
there  is  another  way  of  being  negatively  unphonetic  by  simply 
suppressing — not  perverting — the  phonetic  information  required. 
Thus,  when  a  foreigner  has  to  read  aloud  about  '  the  reform- 
bill  of  1830,'  it  is  no  help  to  him  to  have  it  phonetically 
transcribed  into  (fts  rifombil  9v  1830),  if  the  numerals  are  not 
transcribed  in  full  at  the  same  time.  It  is  still  worse  when  an 
Englishman  has  to  read  straight  off  in  French  such  a  number 
as  1789.  Vietor  and  Dorr  are  quite  right  in  giving  such  texts 
as  the  following  in  their  Englisches  Lesebuch — except,  of  course, 
that  it  ought  to  be  in  phonetic  spelling  : — 

'  In  the  course  of  last  month  Jack  saved  elevenpence.  Out 
of  this  he  bought  a  few  steel  pens,  for  which  he  paid  threepence, 
and  a  pot x  of  ink,  which  cost  him  twopence.  The  rest  of  his 
money  was  then  just  one  small  silver  coin ;  what  is  its  name  ? ' 

But  they  spoil  it  all  by  going  on  to  give  such  'texts'  as 
the  following : — 

Addition  Table. 


] 

and 

2  and 

3  and 

4  and 

I 

are  2 

1  are  3 

I  are  4 

1  are  5 

2 

»   3 

2  „   4 

2  „   S 

2  „   6 

3 

>,      4 

3  »   5 

3  ,.   6 

3  ,»   7 

4 

»   5 

4  „      6 

4  »   7 

4  „   8 

5 

„   6 

5  ,.   7 

5  „   8 

5  -»   9 

6 

„   7 

6  „   8 

6  „  9 

6  „  10 

7 

„   8 

7  „      9 

7  »  10 

7  „  11 

8 

»   9 

8  „  10 

8  „  n 

8  „  12 

9 

„  10 

9  ,,  11 

9  »  12 

9  .,  13 

10 

»  11 

10  ,,  12 

10  „  13 

10  „  14 

11 

„  12 

11  „    13 

11  ,,  14 

11  11  IS 

12 

»  13 

12  „  14 

12  „  15 

12  „  16 

Ought  to  be  '  bottle.' 


12    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

So  also  such  a  formula  as  a2  +  2ab  +  b2  ought  to  be  also 
written  in  full  (ei  -skwe9  :plas  tuw  :ei  bij  :plas  bij  -skwea), 
although,  of  course,  it  would  be  out  of  place  in  an  elementary 
book. 

On  the  same  principle  such  contractions  as  lb.,  cwt.,  oz.,  fiy., 
ought  to  be  written  in  full. 

But  here  a  caution  is  necessary.  It  would  be  quite  wrong  to 
expand  P.M.  into  (poust  mi'ridjem),  for  we  always  pronounce 
this  contraction  literally — (pij  em).  M.A.  may  be  read  either 
as  (:maast3r  sv  aats)  or  (em  ei),  as  also  M.P.  and  many  others, 
the  literal  pronunciations  being  the  most  common. 

Relation  of  Nomic  to  Phonetic  Spelling 

The  first  and  most  obvious  objection  brought  against  the 
use  of  a  phonetic  notation  in  teaching  a  foreign  language  is 
the  danger  of  confusion  between  the  phonetic  and  the  nomic 
spelling  of  the  language.  A-priori  theorists  have  argued  that 
the  result  of  beginning  with  a  phonetic  spelling  will  inevitably 
be  '  to  spoil  the  learner's  spelling  for  life.'  But  all  who  have 
ever  given  the  phonetic  method  a  fair  trial  maintain  that  this 
objection  has  no  practical  weight.  They  assure  us  that  their 
experience  shows  that  when  a  language  has  once  been  thor- 
oughly mastered  in  a  phonetic  notation,  the  learning  of  the 
ordinary  traditional  spelling  offers  no  difficulty :  those  who 
have  begun  phonetically  end  by  spelling  orthographically  just 
as  well  as  those  who  began  at  the  same  time  with  the  ordinary 
spelling,  and  learn  no  other  spelling,  and  thus  were  able  to 
give  much  more  time  to  it.  The  explanation  of  the  quicker 
progress  of  the  phonetic  learners  is,  of  course,  that  they  are 
able  to  grasp  the  general  idea  of  sound-representation  easier 
and  quicker  by  beginning  with  an  easier — that  is,  a  phonetic 
— spelling. 

It  cannot,  of  course,  be  denied  that  the  study  of  such  a 
language  as  French  would  be  easier  if  the  divergence  between 
its  nomic  and  its  phonetic  spelling  did  not  exist.  But  the 
difficulty  of  which  this  divergence  is  the  expression  is  not  the 
fault  of  phonetics  :  ignoring  phonetics  does  not  get  rid  of  the 
divergence  between  the  spoken  and  the  written  sounds  of 
the  language.  All  we  can  do  is  to  minimize  the  difficulty; 
and  the"  first  step  towards  this  is  the  adoption  of  a  phonetic 
transcription. 


PHONETIC   NOTATION  13 

The  next  question  is,  Which  should  be  learnt  first  ?  This 
amounts  practically  to  the  question,  Which  associations  ought 
to  be  strongest  ?  Clearly  those  with  the  sounds :  in  speaking 
the  associations  between  sounds  and  ideas  must  be  instan- 
taneous, while  in  reading  or  writing  we  have  time  to  stop 
and  think.  This  is  the  order  we  follow  in  learning  our  own 
language  :  we  speak  before  we  spell. 

If  children  learnt  by  eye  first,  they  would  never  speak 
properly — they  would  speak  like  foreigners  who  have  begun 
with  the  literary  language. 

The  same  kind  of  reasoning  which  forbids  us  to  begin  with 
the  nomic  spelling,  forbids  us  also  to  learn  the  two  simul- 
taneously. The  only  way  of  avoiding  cross-associations  is  to 
begin  with  one  of  them  and  use  it  exclusively,  and  then — either 
for  a  time  or  permanently — use  the  other  as  exclusively.  As 
we  have  seen,  there  is  every  reason  why  we  should  begin  with 
the  phonetic  spelling,  which,  when  it  has  served  its  purpose, 
may  be  put  aside  entirely. 

The  relation  between  phonetic  and  nomic  spelling  is 
analogous  to  that  between  the  tonic  sol-fa  notation  and  the 
ordinary  staff-notation  in  music.  The  advocates  of  the  former 
notation  argue  that  the  first  thing  is  to  learn  the  thing  itself  in 
the  easiest  way  possible.  They  then  go  on  to  state  as  a  fact, 
the  result  of  experience,  that  when  the  thing  music  is  once 
learnt,  it  does  not  matter  so  much  what  notation  is  used.  The 
result  of  beginning  with  the  tonic  sol-fa  notation  is  that 
thousands  who  would  be  quite  unable  to  learn  music  from  the 
ordinary  notation,  master  it  perfectly  on  the  new  system,  and 
are  then  able  with  a  little  practice  to  read  music  at  sight  from 
the  staff  notation,  so  that  even  if  their  sole  object  is  to  learn 
the  latter,  they  save  themselves  much  toil  and  trouble  by 
beginning  with  the  tonic  sol-fa  notation. 


Remedies  :   Additional  Marks  and  Letters 

The  difficulties  caused  by  unphonetic  writing  may  be  met  in 
a  variety  of  ways. 

Such  a  difficulty  as  that  of  the  place  of  stress  is  only  a 
negative  one,  and  can  easily  be  remedied  by  the  addition  of 
accents  or  other  marks  without  any  alteration  of  the  nomic 
spelling.     Nor  does  this  kind  of  difficulty  involve  the  same 


14    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

amount  of  cross-association  as  the  confusion  between  close  and 
open  e  in  Italian.  Still  worse  are  cross-associations  involved 
in  such  a  group  of  spellings  as  the  English  plough,  enough, 
trough  =  (plau,  inaf,  trof),  or  those  two  which  made  the  witty 
French  philosopher  express  a  wish  that  the  plague  (pleig)  might 
take  half  of  the  English  people,  the  ague  (eigju)  the  other 
half. 

The  defects  of  such  comparatively  phonetic  orthographies  as 
the  Italian  can  be  easily  remedied  by  the  application  of  diacritics 
as  in  ora  (close),  oro  (open),  or  by  the  use  of  italics,  which  may 
also  be  used  to  indicate  '  silent  letters.' 

But  any  system  which  involves  retention  of  the  nomic  spelling 
practically  breaks  down  in  the  case  of  such  languages  as  English 
and  French.  Here  we  must  sooner  or  later  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  instead  of  trying  to  teach  pronunciation  not 
through  but  in  spite  of  the  nomic  spelling,  it  is  better  to  start 
with  an  entirely  new  phonetic  spelling. 

The  defects  of  the  ordinary  Roman  alphabet  may  be  supple- 
mented in  a  variety  of  ways  : — 

i.  By  adding  new  letters — either  entirely  new,  or  taken  from 
other  alphabets :  /,  3,  17;  b,  •$,  6,  8. 

2.  By  adding  diacritics  :  a,  6,  h. 

3.  By  utilizing  superfluous  letters  :  c,  q,  x. 

4.  By  turned  letters  :  s,  o,  j. 

5.  By  italics  and  capitals  :  a,  s,  r. 

6.  By  digraphs  :  th,  dh,  ny,  Xh. 

Of  these  expedients  the  first  is  the  most  popular.  As  a 
general  rule,  the  more  ignorant  and  inexperienced  the  reformer, 
the  more  reckless  he  is  in  adding  new  types,  although  nothing 
is  more  difficult  than  to  invent  a  new  letter.  The  main  objec- 
tion to  new  types  is,  of  course,  the  trouble  and  expense  of 
procuring  them. 

The  same  objections  apply  also,  though  in  a  less  degree, 
to  diacritics,  which,  as  Ellis  says,  'act  as  new  letters.'  The 
best  known  of  the  diacritic  alphabets  is  Lepsius's  Standard 
Alphabet,  in  which  seventeen  diacritics  are  used  above  and 
fourteen  below  the  letters,  the  number  of  lower-case  letters 
employed  being  more  than  280,  of  which  200  have  to  be 
cut  specially  for  each  fount. 

The  four  other  expedients  have  the  advantage  of  not 
requiring  new  types  to  be  cut. 


PHONETIC   NOTATION  15 

Principles  of  Phonetic  Notation 

The  first  requisite  of  a  good  alphabet  is  that  it  should  be 
capable  of  being  written  and  read  with  ease  and  written  with 
moderate  quickness. 

Simplicity. — For  ease  of  reading,  it  is  desirable  that  the 
letters  should  be  as  simple  as  is  consistent  with  distinctness. 
From  this  point  of  view,  the  Roman  letters  are  superior  to  the 
black-letter  or  Gothic  forms  still  used  in  Germany,  as  we  see 
especially  in  the  capitals.  Dots  and  other  diacritics,  which 
must  be  made  small,  tend  to  indistinctness. 

Compactness. — Ease  of  reading  depends  also  greatly  on 
compactness.  Hence  syllabic  systems  of  writing  like  Sanskrit, 
in  which  such  a  syllable  as  skra  is  expressed  by  a  single  cha- 
racter, are  in  many  respects  easier  and  pleasanter  to  read  than 
the  corresponding  Roman  transcription.  It  is  often  a  matter 
of  surprise  that  the  Chinese  characters  try  the  eyes  so  little,  in 
spite  of  the  great  complexity  and  minute  distinctions  they 
often  involve.  The  reason  is  that  every  word  is  represented 
by  a  compact  square  character,  all  the  characters  being  of 
uniform  size,  the  strain  on  the  eyesight  being  further  reduced 
by  the  arrangement  of  the  characters  in  perpendicular  columns. 
The  superiority  of  the  syllabic  principle  is  strikingly  shown  by 
the  fact  that  both  the  Protestant  and  the  Catholic  missionaries 
in  Canada  use  syllabic  alphabets  in  teaching  the  Crees  and 
other  native  tribes  to  read,  on  account  of  the  length  to  which 
the  words  run  when  written  in  Roman  letters.  These  alphabets 
consist  of  simple  characters  expressing  consonants,  such  as  V» 
turned  different  ways — <  > — to  indicate  what  vowel  follows. 

Joining. — Ease  and  quickness  of  writing  require  that  the 
letters  should  be  easily  joined  together,  as  may  be  seen  by 
comparing  a  passage  written  in  Greek  letters  with  one  in  Roman 
letters. 

The  most  accurate  way  of  estimating  the  comparative  merits 
of  letters  as  regards  ease  and  quickness  of  writing  is  to  count 
the  number  of  strokes  of  which  they  are  composed  on  some 
uniform  plan.  Thus  i  without  a  dot  consists  of  one  stroke, 
scrpit  ^  of  two,  s  of  four. 

But  this  method  of  calculation  leaves  out  of  account  the 
'  aerial  movements '  of  the  pen  from  the  line  of  writing  to  the 
diacritic  and  back  again.  We  see  now  that  writing  the  single 
letter  s  takes  as  much  time  as  writing  the  five  letters  seeee ! 


1 6     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

Printed  Forms. — In  printing,  the  complexity  of  the  letters 
does  not  influence  speed  or  ease :  the  main  thing  is  to  have  as 
few  types  as  possible.  This  is  an  additional  reason  for  abolish- 
ing the  use  of  capitals  in  phonetic  writing — except  for  special 
distinctions.  In  printing  it  is  easiest  to  have  the  letters 
detached.  This  is  highly  objectionable  in  writing,  but  is 
generally  an  advantage  in  reading. 

As  regards  the  relations  between  the  written  and  printed 
forms  of  the  letters,  it  is  evidently  desirable  to  avoid  un- 
necessary deviation  without,  on  the  other  hand,  attempting 
to  make  print  into  a — necessarily  imperfect — imitation  of 
handwriting.  The  disadvantages  of  such  an  attempt  are  well 
shown  in  Arabic,  with  its  superfluous  distinction  of  initial, 
medial,  and  final  forms  of  one  and  the  same  letter,  the 
maximum  of  discomfort  being  reached  when  the  short  vowels 
are  indicated  by  diacritic  strokes  printed  on  separate  lines, 
so  that  the  reader  is  sometimes  in  doubt  whether  the  diacritic 
is  to  be  read  above  the  consonant  of  the  line  he  is  reading  or 
below  the  consonant  of  the  line  above. 

Some  phonetic  transcriptions — such  as  that  of  the  Swedish 
Dialect  Society  and  of  Trautmann  in  his  Sprachlaute — con- 
sist entirely  of  italics,  so  as  to  diminish  the  difference  between 
the  written  and  printed  characters  as  much  as  possible,  and  also 
to  make  the  phonetic  writing  stand  out  distinctly  in  a  page  of 
Roman  type.  But  as  italics  are  required  for  a  variety  of  other 
purposes,  and  as  it  is  a  waste  of  existing  material  not  to  utilize 
the  distinction  of  Roman  and  italic,  it  seems  better  to  make  the 
more  .legible  Roman  the  basis,  and  use  italics  for  various 
supplementary  purposes;  it  is  always  easy  to  mark  off  pho- 
netic writing  by  enclosing  it  in  (  ).  The  transcription  of  the 
Danish  Dialect  Society  Dania  is  so  far  an  advance  on  the  other 
italic  systems  that  it  utilizes  Roman  letters  for  special  dis- 
tinctions of  sound. 

Having  thus  determined  the  general  principles  on  which  the 
choice  of  symbols  is  founded,  we  come  to  the  still  more  diffi- 
cult question,  how  to  use  these  symbols — what  sounds  or  what 
phonetic  functions  to  assign  to  them. 


PHONETIC   NOTATION  17 

National  and  International   Basis 

The  most  obvious  way  of  making  an  unphonetic  orthography 
phonetic  is  to  select  some  one  out  of  the  various  traditional 
representations  of  each  sound,  and  use  that  one  symbol  exclu- 
sively, omitting  at  the  same  time  all  silent  letters,  and  adding 
marks  of  stress  (accent)  if  necessary,  as  in  the  following  speci- 
men of  Ellis's  '  English  Glossic  : ' — 

'  Ingglish  Glosik  iz  veri  eezi  too  reed.  A  cheild  foar  yeerz 
oald  kan  bee  taut  too  reed  Glosik  buoks.' 

A  system  which,  like  Glossic,  writes  short  and  long  vowels 
with  totally  different  symbols  (i,  ee)  is  only  half-phonetic :  it  is 
phonetic  on  an  unphonetic  basis.  Again,  this  unphonetic 
English  basis  breaks  down  altogether  in  some  cases.  It  fails, 
for  instance,  to  supply  unambiguous  symbols  for  the  vowels  in 
child  and  book,  full  and  the  consonant  in  the,  which  Ellis 
writes  (dh). 

The  following  specimens  of  French  and  German  spellings 
formed  in  a  similar  way  on  the  basis  of  the  respective  nomic 
orthographies  of  these  languages  are  taken  from  Soames's 
Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Phonetics : — 

'  Deu  pti  gars<?«  d  la  vil,  Richa:r  e  Gusta:v,  s  egare:r  eun  jou:r 
Aanz  un  epe:s  fore. 

'As  'ist  doch  gevis,  das  'in  der  Valt  den  Manshen  nicts 
nohtvandic  macht  'als  dih  Lihbe.' 

A  fully  phonetic  system,  in  which  long  vowels  and  diph- 
thongs are  expressed  by  consistent  modifications  or  combina- 
tions of  the  simple  vowel  symbols,  and  in  which  simple  sounds 
are,  as  far  as  is  reasonable  and  convenient,  expressed  by  single 
letters  instead  of  diagraphs,  must  necessarily  discard  any  one 
national  traditional  basis.  The  best  basis  on  the  whole  is 
obtained  by  making  the  later  Latin  pronunciation  the  founda- 
tion, with  such  modifications  and  additions  as  may  be  neces- 
sary. We  thus  get  the  '  Romic '  or  international  as  opposed  to 
the  Glossic  or  national  basis.  Thus  the  passage  quoted  above 
appears  as  folio  ws  in  my  '  Broad  Romic '  notation  : — 

1  i?7gli/  glosik  iz  veri  iizi  t9  riid.  3  t/aild  foa  jisz  ould  kan 
bi  tot  ta  riid  glosik  buks.' 

Observe  that  on  this  basis  the  vowel  in  the  English  book, 
French  jour,  and  German  gut  would  be  expressed  uniformly  by 
(u)  in  writing  all  three  languages  (buk,  3uur,  guut)  instead  of  in 
three  different  ways,  as  on  the  Glossic  basis. 

c 


1 8    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

It  is  evident  that  as  soon  as  we  have  to  deal  with  more  than 
one  language  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  superiority  of  the 
Romic  basis. 

A  Universal  Alphabet  Unpractical 

If  a  universal  alphabet  were  constructed  which  provided 
symbols  for  every  possible  sound,  then  each  language  would 
simply  have  to  select  from  it  the  symbols  required  for  its  own 
sound-system.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  desirable  for  ordinary 
practical  purposes  that  each  language  should  utilize  the  simplest 
and  most  convenient  letters.  Thus,  if  in  the  universal  alpha- 
bet (e)  were  restricted  to  the  close  sound  of  French  e,  the  corre- 
sponding open  sound  being  represented  by  (t),  this  arrangement 
would  suit  French  very  well.  But  if  it  were  applied  to  English, 
which  has  not  any  close  (e)  at  all,  the  result  would  be  that  the 
simplest  and  easiest  to  write  of  all  letters  would  not  be  used 
at  all. 

Significant  Sound-distinctions 

Again,  for  practical  purposes  we  have  to  distinguish  between 
differences  of  sound  on  which  differences  of  meaning  depend — 
significant  sound-distinctions — from  those  which  are  not  sig- 
nificant. Thus  the  distinction  between  (e)  and  (e)  is  significant 
in  French,  as  in  pecker,  pecker  ;  but  in  those  languages  in  which 
the  short  e  is  always  open  and  the  long  e  always  close  there  is 
no  necessity  to  employ  (e)  at  all :  the  distinction  of  quantity  in 
(e,  ee)  is  enough.  Even  if  the  distinction  of  close  and  open  is 
made  in  the  long  e,  there  can  be  no  ambiguity  in  writing  e 
for  the  short  sound  if  it  is  always  open,  as  in  German  and 
English,  in  both  of  which  languages  such  a  spelling  as  (men)  is 
perfectly  unambiguous. 

So  also  the  distinction  between  the  first  elements  of  the 
English  diphthongs  in  kigk,  how  is  un-significant,  and  although 
neither  of  them  is  identical  with  the  vowel  of  ask,  we  do 
not  hesitate  to  write  all  three  uniformly  with  a — (hai,  hau, 
aask).  And  as  the  pronunciation  of  these  diphthongs  varies 
considerably,  and  as  it  would  be  impossible  to  do  justice  to  all 
these  minute  distinctions  without  a  much  more  elaborate  system 
of  notation  than  is  required  for  ordinary  practical  purposes, 
we  regard  (ai,  au)  simply  as  general  symbols  for  a  variety  of 


PHONETIC   NOTATION  19 

diphthongs,  all  of  which  may  be  classed  under  one  of  two  distinct 
types,  both  beginning  with  back  or  mixed  non-rounded  vowels 
and  ending  with  approximations  to  (i)  and  (u)  respectively. 

Superfluous  Sound-distinctions 

This  is  connected  with  another  common-sense  principle, 
namely,  that  of  omitting  superfluous  distinctions.  Thus,  if  a 
language  always  has  the  stress  on  the  first  syllable,  the  stress 
does  not  require  to  be  marked  at  all.  If  the  majority  of  words 
have  the  stress  on  the  first  syllable,  then  it  is  necessary  to  mark 
it  only  when  it  falls  on  some  other  syllable.  It  is  evident  that 
on  this  principle  the  '  smooth  breathing '  in  Greek  ought  to  be 
omitted,  as  there  are  only  two  breathings,  and  the  absence  of 
the  rough  breathing  is  enough  to  show  that  the  other  one  is 
meant.  In  English  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  the  long  open  0 
in  naught  from  the  short  open  0  in  not,  which  we  ought  strictly 
to  do  by  writing  (noot,  not).  But  as  there  is  no  short  close  0 
in  English,  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  write  not  with 
the  easier  0.  Hence  it  becomes  superfluous  to  mark  the  length 
in  naught,  which  finally  brings  us  to  (not,  not)  as  the  shortest 
and  most  convenient  phonetic  spellings. 

Modifiable  General   Basis 

We  see,  then,  that  the  ideal  of  a  general  alphabet  for  practical 
purposes  is  one  which  gives  a  basis  which  is,  on  the  whole, 
generally  acceptable,  but  can  be  freely  modified  to  suit  the 
requirements  of  each  language.  The  better  the  basis,  the  less 
inducement  there  will  be  to  diverge  from  it. 

If  we  accept  certain  mechanical  principles,  such  as  utilizing 
c,  x,  and  the  other  superfluous  letters,  avoiding  diacritics,  testing 
new  letters  with  regard  to  their  distinctness  and  ease  of  writing, 
and  return  where  practicable  to  the  original  Roman  values,  we 
shall  have  little  difficulty  in  arriving  at  a  basis  of  agreement. 
No  one,  for  instance,  who  has  given  any  thought  to  general 
principles  could  hesitate  long  between  u  and  y,  s  and  /. 

In  comparing  the  sounds  of  a  variety  of  languages — still 
more  in  dealing  with  sounds  generally — we  require  a  much 
more  elaborate  system  of  notation  than  in  dealing  with  a  single 
language;  we  can  no  longer  content  ourselves  with  marking 


20     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

significant  distinctions  in  the  simplest  and  shortest  way :  it 
becomes  necessary  to  mark  such  distinctions  as  that  between 
the  first  elements  of  English  (ai,  au),  for  the  unsignificant  dis- 
tinction between  the  first  element  of  English  (au)  and  the  (aa) 
of  ask  may  be  a  significant  one  in  some  other  language — as 
it  actually  is  in  Portuguese,  one  of  whose  ^-sounds  is  like 
English  (aa),  while  the  other  is  the  first  element  of  English  (au). 

My  Narrow  Romic  (see  my  Primer  of  Phofietics)  is  a 
general,  minutely  accurate  scientific  notation  on  the  same  basis 
as  Broad  Romic.  Narrow  Romic  is  to  some  extent  based  on 
Ellis's  '  Palseotype,'  a  Romic  system  in  which  no  new  letters 
are  used,  the  ordinary  letters  being  supplemented  by  turned, 
italic,  and  small-capital  letters,  and  by  many  digraphs.  Ellis 
afterwards  had  the  unhappy  idea  of  constructing  a  '  Universal 
Glossic'  on  the  English-values  basis,  which  is  a  complete 
failure.  It  has  had  disastrous  effects  on  the  phonetic  investi- 
gation of  the  English  dialects,  for  which  it  was  specially 
intended. 

My  Romic  systems  were  made  the  basis  of  the  alphabet  of 
Le  Maitre  Phonetique  (MF),  which  is  the  organ  of  V Association 
phonetique  Internationale  directed  by  Mr.  P.  Passy.  This 
alphabet  is  now  widely  used  on  the  Continent,  and  Mr.  Passy 
hopes  that  it  will  be  universally  adopted  by  linguists  in  all 
countries.  But,  slight  as  the  differences  are  on  the  whole 
between  my  Romic  and  the  MF  alphabet,  I  cannot  bring 
myself  to  adopt  the  latter,  which  I  feel  to  be  still  in  the  experi- 
mental stage.  It  is  surely  best  to  be  contented  with  the  amount 
of  agreement  already  reached,  and  leave  the  rest  to  the  survival 
of  the  fittest,  which  will  certainly  eliminate  some  of  the  details 
of  the  MF  alphabet  in  its  present  form. 

N on- Roman  Basis  :  Organic  Alphabet 

It  is,  indeed,  questionable  whether  it  is  possible  to  construct 
a  really  efficient  universal  alphabet  on  the  basis  of  the  Roman 
alphabet.  All  such  alphabets  tend  to  degenerate  into  an  end- 
less string  of  arbitrary  and  disconnected  symbols.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  build  up  a  really  consistent  and  systematic  notation  on 
such  an  arbitrary  and  inadequate  foundation. 

The  only  way  out  of  the  difficulty  is  to  discard  the  Roman 
alphabet  altogether,  and  start  afresh. 

What  is  wanted  is  a  notation  built  up  on  definite  principles, 


PHONETIC   NOTATION  21 

in  which  there  is  a  definite  relation  between  symbol  and  sound. 
This  relation  may  be  either  organic  or  acoustic — that  is,  the 
symbol  may  indicate  either  the  organic  positions  which  produce 
the  sound,  or  indicate  the  pitch  and  other  acoustic  characteristics 
of  the  sound.  No  one  has  ever  attempted,  as  far  as  I  know,  to 
construct  a  phonetic  notation  on  a  purely  acoustic  basis.  The 
tendency  of  the  earlier  attempts  at  a  universal  alphabet  was  to 
symbolize  the  consonants  organically,  the  vowels  acoustically, 
as  in  Briicke's  Phonetischc  Transscription  (Vienna,  1863).  It  is 
now  generally  acknowledged  that  the  vowels  as  well  as  the 
consonants  must  be  represented  on  a  strictly  organic  (physio- 
logical) basis.  This  is  the  great  merit  of  Bell's  Visible  Speech, 
which  appeared  in  1868,  and,  in  a  shorter  form  and  with  some 
modifications,  in  1882,  under  the  title  of  Sounds  atid  their 
Relations. 

I  studied  Bell's  system  under  the  author  himself,  and  after- 
wards gave  an  elaborate  criticism  of  Visible  Speech  in  a  paper 
on  Sound-notation  (Phil.  Soc.  Transs.,  t88o— 1),  in  which  I 
described  a  modification  of  it — the  Organic  Alphabet.  This 
system  is  merely  a  revised  form  of  Visible  Speech,  in  which  I 
attempted  to  get  rid  of  what  seemed  objectionable  features  in 
the  older  system  without  attempting  any  radical  changes.  A 
full  description  of  the  Organic  alphabet  will  be  found  in  my 
Primer  of  Phonetics. 

The  Narrow  Romic  notation  already  mentioned  (p.  21)  is 
practically  a  transcription  of  the  Organic  alphabet  into  Roman 
letters,  so  as  to  make  the  principles  of  Bell's  analysis  more 
accessible  to  the  world  at  large.  In  the  Primer  of  Phonetics  I 
use  this  notation,  together  with  Broad  Romic,  concurrently 
with  the  organic  symbols. 

All  these  notations  are  alphabetic  :  that  is,  they  go  on  the 
general  principle  of  providing  separate  symbols  for  each  simple 
sound. 

In  the  Roman  alphabet  such  symbols  as  v,f,  are  arbitrary. 
In  a  physiological  alphabet  such  as  the  Organic,  each  letter  is 
made  up  of  elements  presenting  the  components  of  the  sound ; 
thus  in  the  organic  symbol  of  (v)  we  can  clearly  see  the  graphic 
representation  of  its  components  '  lip,  teeth,  voice.'  It  is  not, 
of  course,  necessary  that  all  the  components  should  be  explicitly 
represented  in  the  symbol.  Thus,  if  there  is  a  special  mark  or 
modifier  to  express  voice,  the  absence  of  that  modifier  neces- 
sarily implies  breath.     A  further  simplification  is  attained  by 


22     THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

the  consistent  use  of  differences  of  projection  above  and  below 
the  line  of  writing,  and  of  size — as  in  the  distinction  between 
Roman  1  and  i  (without  the  dot),  o  and  °,  and  of  direction,  as 
in  the  Cree  alphabet  (p.  15).  All  these  devices  are  fully 
utilized  in  the  Organic  alphabet,  the  result  often  being  that  the 
letters  are  simpler  than  the  corresponding  Roman  ones.  The 
simplicity  of  the  system  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  in  its  most 
elaborate  form  it  requires  only  109  types  compared  with  the 
280  of  Lepsius's  alphabet  (p.  14). 

Analphabetic  Basis 

An  '  analphabetic,'  as  opposed  to  an  alphabetic  basis  was  first 
definitely  advocated  by  Jespersen  in  his  Articulations  of  speech- 
sounds  represented  by  means  of  Analphabetic  symbols  (Marburg, 
1889),  the  system  being  further  developed  in  his  Pho?ietik. 

In  this  system  the  elementary  symbols  do  not  denote  sounds, 
but  the  components  of  sounds,  each  simple  sound  being  repre- 
sented by  a  group  of  symbols  resembling  a  chemical  formula, 
as  if  we  were  to  denote  the  lip-teeth-voice  consonant  by  Itv  or 
//  instead  of  v.  In  this  way  Jespersen  avoids  what  he  con- 
siders the  great  defect  of  Bell's  notation,  that  is,  its  want  of 
elasticity.  He  claims  for  his  own  system  that  it  allows  perfect 
freedom  in  combining  the  elementary  symbols,  while  Bell's 
vowel-symbols,  for  instance,  can  be  used  only  by  those  who 
accept  all  the  details  of  his  analysis  as  enshrined  in  his 
famous  '  chess-board '  arrangement  of  the  36  elementary 
vowels.  Another  great  advantage  which  he  claims  for  his 
system  is  that  the  symbols  consist  mainly  of  the  first  six  letters 
of  the  Greek  and  the  first  twelve  letters  of  the  Roman  alphabet 
together  with  the  numerals,  so  that  it  can  be  printed  anywhere, 
and  thus  made  generally  accessible. 

The  two  main  defects  in  Jespersen's  working-out  of  these 
ideas  appear  to  be  that  his  choice  of  symbols  is  not  good,  and 
that  his  symbolization  is  too  abstract. 

As  regards  the  first  criticism,  when  we  consider  how  unwieldy 
and  sprawly  such  a  notation  must  necessarily  be,  we  have  a 
right  to  expect  that  these  drawbacks  will  be  compensated  by 
the  symbols  being  as  accessible  and  easy  to  handle  as  possible, 
especially  when  we  consider  how  few  of  them  are  required. 
One  does  not  understand,  therefore,  why  the  inventor  should 
have  gone  out  of  his  way  to  mix  up  Greek  with  Roman  letters ; 


PHONETIC   NOTATION  23 

for  the  former  are  not  to  be  met  with  in  every  printing-office, 
so  that  many  missionaries  in  out-of-the  way  regions  would  not 
be  able  to  use  the  Analphabetic  notation  at  all.  He  also 
occasionally  uses  Greek  capitals,  and  a  small  capital  R  together 
with  a  turned  2 — z,  all  of  which  are  symbols  which  would  be 
avoided  by  any  one  constructing  an  ordinary  alphabetic  phonetic 
notation,  although  their  use  would  be  much  more  excusable 
there. 

The  second  defect  is  shown  in  the  use  made  of  these  symbols. 
The  Greek  letters  denote  the  moveable  organs,  such  as  the  lips 
and  the  different  parts  of  the  tongue  ;  the  Roman  letters  denote 
such  organs  as  the  teeth  and  the  different  parts  of  the  palate. 
The  alphabetic  order  of  both  sets  of  letters  is  made  to  corre- 
spond to  the  order  of  the  articulatory  organs,  beginning  with  the 
lips :  /3  =  tip  of  the  tongue,  d  =  teeth,  k  =  uvula.  The  result 
of  this  is  that  there  is  no  direct  association  between  symbol  and 
organ.  And,  indeed,  to  those  accustomed  to  the  opposite 
order,  which  makes  the  stream  of  breath  follow  the  direction 
of  ordinary  writing,  thus — throat,  back  of  tongue  and  palate, 
front,  lips  (Primer  'of  Phonetics,  §  35) — so  that  the  lips  come 
last  instead  of  first,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  learn  and 
remember  the  meaning  of  these  symbols. 

This  notation  would  surely  be  greatly  improved  (1)  by  getting 
rid  of  the  out-of-the-way  symbols  and  by  substituting  italics  for 
the  Greek  letters ;  (2)  by  making  the  latter  correspond  as  far 
as  possible  to  the  Roman  letters,  so  that,  for  instance,  the 
upper  and  the  lower  lip,  the  middle  of  the  palate  and  the 
middle  of  the  tongue,  should  be  respectively  denoted  by  the  same 
letter,  one  Roman,  the  other  italic  ;  and  (3)  by  giving  each 
place  of  articulation  a  symbol  which  could  be  directly  associated 
with  it.  Thus,  the  upper  teeth  might  be  denoted  by  /,  the 
lower  by  f,  because  this  consonant  necessarily  involves  teeth 
articulation.  It  would  certainly  be  less  confusing  to  find  j  used 
to  denote  the  middle  of  the  palate  than  the  back,  as  in 
Jespersen's  scheme. 

But  however  much  this  notation  were  capable  of  improve- 
ment, certain  radical  defects  would  always  remain.  In  the  first 
place,  no  possible  choice  of  Roman  letters  could  entirely 
obviate  cross-associations  with  their  existing  values.  And  the 
formulae  are  too  lengthy  for  the  eye  to  be  able  to  take  them  in 
at  a  glance  or  remember  them  :  they  can  never  make  a  definite 
picture  to  the  eye  as  the  organic  symbols  do. 


24    THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

In  short,  the  gain  is  so  questionable  that  it  would  perhaps  be 
best  in  the  end  to  fall  back  on  descriptions  of  the  sounds  in 
contractions  of  ordinary  words,  denoting,  for  instance  (v)  by 
Ip  tth  vce  if  Itv  is  too  brief. 

Nevertheless,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  system  is  an 
ingenious  one,  and  worthy  of  trial,  especially  at  the  present  time, 
when  there  seems  little  prospect  of  agreement  as  to  a  general 
scientific  alphabet  on  a  non-Roman  basis. 

Jespersen's  notation  has  one  great  advantage  over  Bell's  in 
being  based  on  a  more  advanced  phonetic  analysis.  But  this, 
of  course,  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  fundamental  question 
whether  the  universal  alphabet  of  the  future  is  to  be  on  an 
alphabetic  or  an  analphabetic  basis. 

The  Alphabetic  Basis  the  Best 

Many  of  the  objections  which  Jespersen  makes  to  Bell's 
alphabet  could  be  easily  got  rid  of  without  giving  up  the 
alphabetic  basis. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Organic  alphabet  is  made  much  more 
elastic  than  Visible  Speech  by  the  '  modifiers '  introduced  by 
me,  some  of  which  have  been  found  so  useful  that  they  have 
made  their  way  into  the  Romic  transcriptions  of  Passy  and 
others.  Again,  it  would  be  easy  by  a  slight  modification  of  the 
vowel  letters  to  construct  symbols  denoting  narrow  or  wide 
vowels  indifferently,  and  so  on.  In  fact,  this  can  easily  be 
done  as  it  is  by  adding  the  '  wide-modifier '  to  the  narrow 
vowel.  In  fact,  many  years  ago  I  constructed  a  general 
algebraic  phonetic  notation  on  this  basis,  in  which  there  were 
symbols  for  whole  classes  of  sounds — one  to  denote  all  stopped 
consonants,  another  to  denote  all  mixed  vowels,  and  so  on. 
With  a  little  management,  and  the  temporary  use  of  Roman 
letters,  such  as  v  =  '  vowel,'  x  =  '  consonant,'  combined  with 
the  modifiers,  this  can  be  effected  with  the  Organic  alphabet  in 
its  present  shape. 

We  must  not  forget,  moreover,  that  all  alphabets — even  the 
most  scientific — are  intended  to  serve  practical  purposes. 

Practice  implies  compromise.  Hence  every  alphabet  must 
in  some  respects  be  a  compromise  between  opposite  principles. 
Thus  the  Organic  alphabet  is  so  far  analphabetic  that  its 
elementary  symbols  mark  only  those  distinctions  of  sound 
which,  as   far   as   can   be  judged   a  priori,  are   likely  to   be 


PHONETIC   NOTATION  25 

.significant  (p.  18).  Thus  they  involve  the  division  of  the  palate 
into  three  parts  only,  the  minuter  intermediate  positions  in- 
volved in  Jespersen's  symbols  being  indicated  by  the  modifiers, 
which  are  graphically  subordinated  to  the  elementary  symbols. 
So  in  this  respect  the  Organic  alphabet  partially  adopts  the 
digraph  or  analphabetic  principle. 

Again,  in  a  practical  alphabet,  the  distinctions  of  nature 
must  often  be  exaggerated  so  that  there  may  be  no  hesitation 
in  distinguishing  the  symbols  of  similar  sounds.  From  this 
point  of  view  Jespersen's  objection  to  Bell's  symbolizing  con- 
sonants and  vowels  on  different  principles,  so  that,  for  instance, 
there  is  no  resemblance  between  the  symbols  of  lowered  (j) 
and  non-syllabic  (i),  appears  of  little  weight.  The  real  objection 
here  seems  to  be  that  Bell  confuses  analysis  with  synthesis. 
But,  again,  if  it  is  more  practical  and  convenient  to  embody 
such  distinctions  as  vowel  and  consonant,  syllabic  and  non- 
syllabic,  in  the  elementary  analytic  symbols,  then  he  is  justified 
in  doing  so  till  some  one  else  hits  on  an  arrangement  which  is 
more  scientific  and  as  practical. 

Universal  Alphabet  not  suited  for  Connected 

Writing 

A  universal  notation  is,  in  the  nature  of  things,  generally 
used  only  to  write  a  few  words  at  a  time,  sometimes  only  a 
single  sound.  In  writing  connected  texts  in  one  particular 
language,  an  alphabet  of  the  Broad  Romic  type  is  infinitely 
more  convenient :  all  the  learner  has  to  do  is  to  associate  each 
Broad  Romic  symbol  with  the  pronunciation  of  the  correspond- 
ing Narrow  Romic,  Organic,  or  Analphabetic  symbol  of  the 
sound  in  question,  so  that,  for  instance,  when  he  meets  (i)  in 
his  texts,  he  knows  that  it  stands  for  the  high  front  wide — or 
whatever  shade  of  sound  it  is — in  the  language  he  is  studying. 

But  it  is  evidently  a  great  help  to  the  learner — especially  if 
he  has  not  a  teacher — to  have  his  texts  accompanied  by  a 
minutely  accurate  notation  for  at  least  the  first  page  or  two. 
Here  an  analphabetic  notation  is  perfectly  useless. 

The  advantages  of  the  Roman  alphabet  for  connected  tran- 
scription are  evident :  it  is  an  alphabet  which  has  been  developed 
partly  by  a  slow  process  of  spontaneous  evolution,  partly  by 
conscious  reforms  and  endless  experiments. 


26     THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

But  it  has  many  defects.  From  a  mechanical  point  of  view, 
its  worst  defect  is  want  of  compactness  (p.  15).  In  a  universal 
scientific  alphabet  like  the  Organic,  a  certain  amount  of  spraw- 
liness  is  inevitable  ;  but  in  a  practical  alphabet,  which  has  to 
supply  only  a  limited  number  of  characters,  it  is  an  inexcusable 
defect. 

Again,  although  our  script  or  running-hand  alphabet  is  fairly 
quick  to  write,  it  ought  certainly  to  be  quicker  than  it  is.  In 
most  of  the  languages  which  use  the  Roman  alphabet  speed  is 
further  impeded  by  diacritics,  such  as  the  accents  in  French. 
Even  in  English  the  dot  over  the  /  and/  wastes  much  time. 


Superiority  of  Phonetic  Shorthand 

These  and  other  considerations  point  clearly  to  the  adoption 
of  a  system  of  phonetic  shorthand  on  a  general  basis  capable 
of  being  adapted  to  the  special  requirements  of  each  language. 
As  the  basis  of  such  a  shorthand  would  be  necessarily  quite 
independent  of  the  Roman  alphabet,  the  danger  of  confusion 
between  phonetic  and  nomic  spellings  would  be  reduced  to  a 
minimum.  The  introduction  of  a  phonetic  shorthand  would, 
at  the  same  time,  be  the  real  solution  of  the  problem  of  spell- 
ing-reform. Lastly,  all  modern  systems  of  shorthand  are  based 
more  or  less  on  organic  or  acoustic  associations :  they  all  show 
some  connection  between  the  form  of  the  symbols  and  the 
sounds  they  represent,  although,  of  course,  in  a  practical  system 
of  writing  theoretical  consistency  must  always  yield  to  con- 
siderations of  speed  and  convenience. 

Speed. — The  term  '  shorthand '  is,  in  itself,  only  a  relative 
one.  Our  ordinary  script  is  a  shorthand,  if  compared  with  the 
Roman  capitals  out  of  which  it  developed.  The  highest 
development  of  shorthand  as  regards  speed  of  writing  is,  of 
course,  reporting  shorthand,  whose  definite  aim  is  to  enable  the 
writer  to  keep  up  with  a  moderately  fluent  speaker  :  that  is,  it 
must  be  capable  of  being  written  at  the  rate  of  about  150  words 
a  minute,  which  is  five  times  as  much  as  the  rate  of  quick  long- 
hand writing. 

As  speech  would  outrun  the  quickest  fingers,  if  every  syllable 
— not  to  speak  of  every  sound — had  to  be  indicated,  if  only 
by  a  single  stroke,  high  speed  necessarily  involves  contraction 
— the  wholesale  omission  of  vowels,  syllables,  or  even  words  — 


PHONETIC   NOTATION  27 

the  result  being  generally  unintelligible  to  the  writer  himself 
unless  copied  out  into  longhand  immediately  after  being 
written. 

Distinctiveness. — A  system  of  shorthand  which  is  to  take 
the  place  of  longhand  and  retain  the  latter's  advantages  must, 
on  the  other  hand,  subordinate  speed  to  legibility.  For  lingu- 
istic purposes  it  must  be  more  than  legible  :  it  must  be  phoneti- 
cally distinctive,  that  is,  it  must  be  capable  of  being  transcribed 
accurately  into  such  a  notation  as  Broad  Romic.  In  its  con- 
tractions, too,  it  must  be  rigorously  distinctive :  each  word, 
however  much  contracted,  must  have  its  own  outline,  by  which 
it  can  be  recognized  immediately  and  with  certainty  without 
any  guessing  by  the  context. 

All  we  can  expect,  then,  from  this  point  of  view,  is  a  system 
of  writing  as  much  shorter  and  more  compact  than  ordinary 
longhand  as  the  requirements  of  distinctness  and  legibility  will 
allow.  None  of  the  three  systems  most  in  use  at  the  present 
time — Pitman's  in  England  and  America,  and  the  German 
systems  of  Gabelsberger  and  Stolze  on  the  Continent — can 
be  said  fully  to  meet  these  requirements  :  they  all  sacrifice 
efficiency  to  brevity,  the  brevity  being  often  only  apparent. 

My  Current  Shorthand  is  an  attempt  to  supply  this  want 
(A  Manual  of  Current  Shorthand,  Oxford,  1892).  In  the 
preface  to  the  Manual  I  sum  up  the  characteristic  features  of 
the  system  as  follows  : — 

1.  It  is  the  first  workable  pure  script  [as  opposed  to  geo- 
metric] shorthand  that  has  been  brought  out  in  England. 

2.  It  affords  the  first  satisfactory  solution  of  the  vowel 
problem,  by  providing  separate  symbols  for  them,  which, 
though  joined  to  the  consonants,  are  subordinated  to  them,  so 
that  the  vowels  can  be  omitted  without  altering  the  general 
appearance  of  the  word. 

3.  It  is  the  first  system  which  makes  a  systematic  use  of 
projection  above  and  below  the  line  of  writing  to  indicate  the 
different  classes  of  consonants. 

4.  It  provides  a  purely  orthographic  and  a  purely  phonetic 
style  of  writing  for  concurrent  use. 

5.  It  discards  not  only  thick  and  thin,  but  all  other  sham 
distinctions. 

6.  It  is  rigorously  linear,  so  that  it  can  be  used  for  all  the 
purposes  of  ordinary  longhand. 


28    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

7.  It  could  be  printed  from  moveable  types  with  compara- 
tive ease. 

8.  It  is  on  a  strictly  syllabic  and  alphabetic  basis. 

Modified  Nomic  Spelling 

As  already  remarked  (p.  14),  the  defects  of  a  comparatively 
phonetic  orthography  such  as  that  of  Italian  or  German  can 
be  easily  remedied  without  substituting  a  new  orthography. 

A  nomic  orthography  can  be  supplemented  in  the  six  ways 
enumerated  on  p.  14. 

Of  these  methods,  the  use  of  diacritics  is  peculiarly  applicable 
to  the  orthographies  of  dead  languages,  especially  those  in  which 
it  is  desirable  to  reproduce  the  varying  spellings  of  the  original 
manuscripts,  as  in  printing  Old  English  or  Old  Irish  texts.  It  is 
often  a  great  advantage  to  have  such  texts  printed  in  such  a 
form  as  to  enable  the  reader  to  see  at  a  glance  what  is  the 
original  manuscript  spelling,  while  at  the  same  time  he  is 
supplied  with  the  additional  information  required  for  the  dis- 
crimination of  the  distinctive  sounds  of  the  language  as  far  as 
they  have  been  determined  with  any  degree  of  probability. 
Thus  in  Old  English  there  are  two  sounds  of  c,  namely  (k)  and 
(c),  the  former  being  sometimes  written  k  in  the  manuscripts. 
If  our  manuscript  has  k,  we  print  it  so ;  if  the  manuscript  has  c, 
we  print  it  c  when  it  stands  for  (k),  c  when  it  stands  for  (c).  If 
we  were  constructing  a  new  phonetic  transcription  of  Old 
English,  we  should  transliterate  the  two  sounds  by  k  and  c 
respectively,  as  being  more  distinct  and  convenient  than  c  and 
c.  But  this  is  inadmissible  if  we  wish  faithfully  to  preserve  the 
evidence  of  the  manuscripts.  So  also  it  is  better  to  mark  long 
vowels  in  Old  English  with  (~)  than  by  doubling — which  we 
might  prefer  in  a  free  phonetic  transcription — or  the  addition 
of  ( '),  for  quantity  is  occasionally  marked  in  these  last  ways  in 
the  manuscripts,  but  never  by  the  macron  or  circumflex,  either 
of  which  may  therefore  be  employed.  Hence  such  spellings  as 
kene,  cyning,  ciese,  ciese,  in  my  Anglo-Saxon  Reader  serve  both 
to  indicate  the  exact  pronunciation  of  these  words,  and  to  allow 
the  reader  to  infer  that  the  original  manuscript  spellings  are 
kene,  cyning,  ciese,  ciese. 

Although  diacritics  have  peculiar  advantages  as  regards 
restitution  of  the  original  manuscript  spellings,  there  is  no 
objection  to  substituting  other  letters  which  do  not  occur  in 


PHONETIC    NOTATION  29 

the  ordinary  orthography  of  the  language  in  question.  Thus  if 
k  never  occurred  in  Old  English  manuscripts,  there  would  be  no 
harm  in  using  it  instead  of  c,  so  that  the  other  sound  could 
be  represented  by  simple  c.  In  the  same  way  we  could  sub- 
stitute .?  for  c,  or  use  it  to  distinguish  the  open  0  in  lond  as 
opposed  to  the  close  0  in  on,  boren,  for  none  of  these  substi- 
tutions would  hinder  the  recovery  of  the  manuscript  spelling. 
Italics  are  often  very  convenient  for  such  discriminations  of 
pairs  of  sounds. 

Italics  are  specially  useful  in  indicating  silent  letters,  such  as 
the  final  e  in  many  words  in  Chaucer's  English.  As  silent 
letters  do  not  occur  in  Old  English,  italics  can  be  used  there  to 
mark  the  omission  by  the  manuscript  of  a  letter  required  by 
strict  phonetic  spelling,  as  in  mann  for  the  manuscript  spelling 
man. 

Even  modern  English  might  be  written  phonetically  in  this 
way.  Thus  through,  though,  thy  might  be  written  (through, 
though,  Thy).  But  any  such  method  breaks  down  practically 
with  such  an  orthography  as  the  English;  and  it  is  much 
simpler  in  the  end  to  start  with  an  entirely  new  phonetic 
spelling,  as  distinct  from  the  nomic  spelling  as  possible. 


CHAPTER   IV 

FOREIGN   ALPHABETS 

The  difficulty  of  learning  national  alphabets  does  not  much 
trouble  the  linguist  as  long  as  he  confines  himself  to  European 
languages. 

But  even  the  German  black  letter  causes  some  difficulty  to 
the  beginner,  although  it  is  nothing  but  a  late  modification  of 
the  Roman  alphabet.  The  printed  capitals  are  especially 
difficult :  of  those  who  have  learnt  to  recognize  them  perfectly 
by  eye,  not  one  in  a  thousand  is  capable  of  drawing  them  from 
memory.  I  remember,  when  I  began  to  learn  German  by 
myself  as  a  boy,  that  I  at  first  confused  the  capital  s  with  g,  so 
that  I  read  the  word  for  'care'  as  gorgfalt.  By  a  similar 
confusion  I  read  neunauge,  '  lamprey,'  as  reunauge.  This  I 
found  a  hindrance  to  remembering  these  words ;  as  soon  as  I 
read  them  correctly,  I  recognized  their  etymology  and  remem- 
bered them  without  difficulty. 

So  also  the  Greek  and  Russian  alphabets  are  easily  mastered 
by  those  who  have  an  eye  for  form,  while  to  others  they  may 
cause  considerable  waste  of  time.  Thus  I  was  told  by  the  late 
Prince  L.  L.  Bonaparte  that  he  never  could  learn  Russian  or 
any  Oriental  language  solely  because  of  their  alphabets :  he 
did  not  care  how  difficult  a  language  was  as  long  as  it  was  in 
the  Latin  alphabet. 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  enlarge  on  the  difficulties  of  such 
systems  of  writing  as  the  Arabic,  Sanskrit,  Chinese,  and 
Japanese.  The  Chinese  running-hand  is  said  to  take  eight 
years  to  learn,  even  when  the  learner  has  thoroughly  mastered 
the  printed  characters — itself  a  task  of  great  difficulty. 

The  multiplicity  of  alphabets  is  a  source  of  inconvenience  in 
many  ways,  and  also  of  expense. 

Transliteration  of  Foreign  Alphabets 

Fortunately  there  is  a  growing  tendency  to  substitute  the 
Roman  for  the  national  alphabet  in  many  languages.  Holland, 
Sweden,  England,  and  many  other  countries  have  given  up  the 

30 


FOREIGN  ALPHABETS  3r 

black  letter,  and  others  are  following  in  their  steps.  The 
practice  of  transliterating  into  the  Roman  alphabet  has  extended 
to  many  of  the  Slavonic  languages. 

Transliteration  is  now  the  rule  in  quoting  words  from  a 
variety  of  dead  languages,  as  in  comparative  grammars.  In 
such  a  book  as  Horn  Tooke's  Diversions  of  Purley  (published 
towards  the  end  of  the  last  century)  we  still  find  the  Gothic 
and  Old  English  words  printed  in  Gothic  and  Anglo-Saxon 
types.  Now  no  one  thinks  of  using  these  characters  even  in 
connected  texts.  So  also  Bopp,  in  his  Comparative  Grammar, 
gave  Zend  words  in  Zend  types,  and  so  on ;  all  his  successors 
transliterate  the  Old  Arian  languages  except  Greek.  It  is  a 
curious  illustration  of  the  force  of  habit  and  prejudice  that  we 
still  persist  in  printing  Greek  in  late  Byzantine  characters  which 
no  ancient  Greek  would  be  able  to  read. 

From  a  psychological  point  of  view,  the  relations  between 
national  alphabets  and  transliterations  are  exactly  parallel  to 
those  between  nomic  and  phonetic  spelling.  The  first  thing  is 
to  learn  the  language  itself  in  the  easiest  possible  way,  which 
involves  beginning  with  transliterated  texts.  When  the  language 
itself  has  once  been  learnt,  it  can  be  easily  read  in  any  alphabet : 
Greek  is  still  Greek  in  a  Roman  as  well  as  in  a  Byzantine  dress, 
Arabic  is  still  Arabic  even  when  written  with  Hebrew  letters, 
just  as  English  remains  English  in  all  the  hundreds  of  systems 
of  shorthand  in  which  it  has  from  time  to  time  been  written. 

The  argument  most  generally  brought  against  transliteration 
is  that  it  unsettles  the  learner's  associations  with  the  national 
alphabet. 

The  mere  fact  of  any  one's  bringing  forward  this  objection 
shows  that  his  method  of  learning  languages  is  a  radically 
wrong  one :  it  shows  that  he  learns  them  exclusively  by  eye. 
There  have  been  German  Orientalists  who  made  no  distinction 

whatever  between  the  Arabic  hiss-sounds  (j~,  {jG ,  j,  &,  £■>> ,  i, 
pronouncing  them  all  (s),  and  recognizing  them  only  by  the 
form  of  their  symbols.  But  even  in  an  extreme  case  like  this 
there  ought  not  to  be  any  great  difficulty  in  establishing  visual 
associations  between  the  Arabic  letters  and  their  transliterations 
s,  s,  z,  z,  6,  8  (or  ]?,  $). 

This,  however,  only  elicits  fresh  objections.  The  opponents 
of  transliteration  say,  '  This  would  be  plausible  enough  if  we 
had  only  one  fixed  transliteration  to  learn  ;  but  unfortunately 


32     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

almost  every  text-book  has  a  special  transliteration  of  its  own : 
one  cannot  even  get  a  grammar  and  a  dictionary  with  the  same 
transliteration.  It  is  therefore  impossible  to  carry  out  your 
advice  of  keeping  to  one  transliteration  till  one  has  mastered 
the  Arabic  alphabet.' 

The  multiplicity  of  transliterations  is  certainly  to  be  deplored, 
but  it  is  no  more  an  argument  against  the  principle  of  trans- 
literation than  the  multiplicity  of  phonetic  notations  is  against 
the  phonetic  method.  The  same  influences  which  are  steadily 
bringing  us  nearer  to  our  ideal  of  a  general  basis  of  phonetic 
notation  will  doubtless  bring  about  uniformity  in  the  tran- 
scription of  remoter  languages  as  soon  as  the  results  of  our 
experience  with  European  languages  become  known  to  Orien- 
talists and  others,  who  are  still  hampered  by  bad  traditions  and 
the  unscientific  methods  of  their  native  authorities  to  a  degree 
which  is  incredible  to  those  familiar  with  the  phonetic  method 
as  applied  to  European  languages. 

The  great  safeguard  against  confusions  that  arise  from  con- 
flicting transcriptions  is  the  principle  already  insisted  upon — 
that  of  beginning  with  the  language  itself,  which  of  course 
means  beginning  with  a  mastery  of  its  sounds.  The  beginner 
in  Arabic  who  has  once  learnt  to  distinguish  saif,  '  summer,' 
from  saif,  '  sword,'  by  the  combined  associations  of  the  peculiar 
sound  and  the  special  muscular  sensations  which  accompany 
the  utterance  of  the  '  emphatic  '  s,  will  be  independent  of  trans- 
literations, for  the  ideas  of  '  summer '  and  '  sword  '  will  at  once 
suggest  to  his  mind  combinations  of  sounds  as  well  as  com- 
binations of  letters,  the  former  associations  being  the  stronger 
and  more  direct :  he  will  be  in  quite  a  different  position  from 
the  student  whose  only  definite  associations  are  with  the  written 

and  i — ?*** 


Orthographic  Transcription 

If  the  national  alphabet  itself  is  phonetic,  the  transcription 
will  be  phonetic  also :  it  will  be  a  key  to  the  pronunciation,  and 
at  the  same  time  it  will  be  a  key  to  the  original  spelling  of  each 
word,  so  that  any  one  who  is  acquainted  both  with  the  method  of 
transcription  and  the  national  alphabet  will  be  able  to  trans- 
literate the  transcription  back  into  the  original  writing. 

If  the  national  alphabet  is  unphonetic,  but  only  moderately 


FOREIGN   ALPHABETS  33 

so,  the  most  obvious  course  is  to  follow  the  same  method  as  in 
reproducing  the  manuscript  spellings  of  dead  languages ;  that 
is,  to  add  the  necessary  diacritics,  or  make  whatever  modifica- 
tions may  be  found  convenient  for  the  purpose  of  indicating 
pronunciation,  so  that  all  that  is  necessary  to  transliterate  back 
into  the  national  writing  is  to  ignore  these  supplementary  dis- 
tinctions. If  the  national  writing  makes  unphonetic  distinctions 
by  having  two  or  more  letters  or  combinations  of  letters  to 
express  the  same  sound  or  sound-group,  then  the  diacritics  will 
have  an  orthographic,  not  a  phonetic  value,  and  will  therefore 
be  ignored  except  as  giving  the  key  to  the  original  writing. 

We  thus  have  a  distinction  between  a  purely  phonetic  and 
an  orthographic  transcription,  the  characteristic  of  the  latter 
being  that  it  can  always  be  transliterated  back  into  the  national 
writing  whether  the  latter  is  phonetic  or  not.  It  need  scarcely 
be  said  that  every  orthographic  transcription  ought  to  be 
phonetic  at  the  same  time,  or  at  any  rate  not  markedly  un- 
phonetic, although  in  many  cases  it  is  most  practical  to  sacrifice 
rigorous  phonetic  consistency  whenever  an  unphonetic  detail 
of  transcription  does  not  cause  real  difficulty.  Thus  in  tran- 
scribing German  it  is  better  to  keep  the  distinction  between  sz 
and  ss  in  fusz,  musz,  miissen,  than  to  run  the  risk  of  subsequent 
confusion  by  writing  fuss,  muss ;  for  such  a  spelling  as  fuss  is 
only  a  compromise  between  fusz  and  the  fully  phonetic  (fuus), 
and  not  even  a  beginner  would  think  of  trying  to  pronounce  sz 
exactly  as  it  is  spelt. 

The  method  of  orthographic  transcription  has  been  success- 
fully applied  to  Persian  by  H.  Barbs,  a  full  account  of  whose 
transcription  by  K.  Feyerabend  will  be  found  in  Phonetische 
Studien,  iii.  162.  Persian  in  itself  is  generally  considered  one 
of  the  easiest  and  simplest  of  languages,  but  in  its  written  form 
it  is  distinctly  a  difficult  language  because  of  the  irregularity, 
complexity,  and  ambiguity  of  its  alphabet  and  orthography. 
Without  the  help  of  a  skilled  and  patient  teacher  it  is  hardly 
possible  to  learn  it  in  its  nomic  form,  because,  as  Feyerabend 
remarks,  'one  can  only  read  out  of  it  what  one  has  already 
learnt  and  knows.'  Persian  has  the  disadvantage  of  being 
written  with  an  alphabet  in  every  way  alien  to  its  genius — the 
Arabic.  Hence  such  a  defect  as  the  omission  of  the  short 
vowels — which  in  Arabic  occasions  much  less  difficulty  than 
might  be  supposed  because  of  the  regularity  and  symmetry  of 
the  Arabic  vowel-system — becomes  very  serious  in  a  language 

u 


34     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

like  Persian,  where  there  are  no  rules  for  determining  a  priori 
the  vowel-structure  of  a  word,  as  is  to  a  considerable  extent 
the  case  in  Arabic.  Persian  is,  besides,  full  of  Arabic  words, 
which  are  written  in  the  Arabic  orthography,  while  the  pro- 
nunciation is  only  imperfectly  preserved.  The  slavish  applica- 
tion of  Arabic  rules  of  orthography  to  Persian  words  is  a  further 
source  of  unphonetic  spellings.  Barbs'  transcription  seems 
fully  to  solve  the  double  problem  of  giving  a  phonetic  tran- 
scription which  can  at  the  same  time  be  transliterated  back 
letter  for  letter  into  the  national  writing.  The  student  begins 
with  a  Reader  in  which  all  the  texts  are  transcribed  on  these 
principles.  When  he  has  gone  through  it,  he  begins  again,  and 
at  the  same  time  he  is  gradually  introduced  to  the  Persian 
alphabet  and  the  rules  of  Persian  orthography.  Then  a  parallel 
Reader  in  the  Persian  writing  is  put  into  his  hands,  and  the 
work  of  deciphering  begins.  Feyerabend  assures  us,  as  the 
result  of  personal  experience,  that  this  causes  no  difficulty  in 
the  second  third  of  the  first  year's  course ;  for,  as  he  says, 
'we  soon  learnt  to  recognize  our  old  acquaintances  in  their 
new  dress.' 

Nomic  Pronunciation 

The  principle  that  in  learning  a  language  through  written 
texts  we  should  strengthen  our  associations  with  the  characters 
by  associating  each  character  with  its  proper  sound,  and  should 
avoid  giving  the  same  sound  to  letters  which  are  pronounced 
differently  (p.  30),  cannot  always  be  carried  out  literally. 

Sometimes  the  learner  has  not  access  to  a  native  teacher  or 
to  reliable  information  about  the  pronunciation.  These  diffi- 
culties are  of  course  greatly  increased  if  he  is  learning  a  dead 
language. 

Under  such  circumstances  the  learner  need  not  hesitate  to 
make  up  a  pronunciation  of  his  own  on  the  principle  of  accom- 
panying every  written  distinction  with  a  corresponding  difference 
of  sound,  so  as  to  strengthen  as  much  as  possible  his  visual 
associations. 

Many  foreigners  have  begun  English  in  this  way,  pronouncing, 
for  instance,  knowledges  three  syllables  (knovledge),  not  because 
they  thought  this  was  the  real  pronunciation,  but  simply  as  a 
means  of  fixing  the  spelling  in  their  minds. 


FOREIGN   ALPHABETS  35 

G.  von  der  Gabelentz — who  united  many  of  the  qualifications 
of  the  theoretical  and  the  practical  linguist— goes  a  step  further, 
and  advises  the  beginner  in  Arabic  who  cannot  pronounce  p  '<?« 

to  substitute  (rj) — a  sound  which  does  not  occur  in  Arabic,  and 
therefore  cannot  be  mistaken  for  anything  but  a  substitute  for 
len  (Gab.  75).  Before  I  saw  Gabelentz'  book  I  had  hit  on  the 
same  device,  and  had  extended  it  to  all  the  difficult  sounds  in 
Arabic :  pronouncing  len  as  (v),  h  as  (w/i)  in  what,  the  hamza 
or  glottal  stop  as  (p),  the  emphatic  consonants  as  front  or 
front-modified  consonants.  None  of  the  substituted  sounds 
occur  in  Arabic,  except  that  (v)  is  sometimes  developed  by 
assimilation  in  colloquial  pronunciation.  The  subsequent  tran- 
sition to  the  real  pronunciation  caused  no  difficulty  whatever : 
after  changing  (v)s  into  '<?«s  for  a  day  or  two,  the  substitution  is 
made  mechanically.  So  also  in  learning  Old  Slavonic  the 
important  and  rather  confusing  distinction  between  i  and  1,  u 
and  u  may  be  easily  made  by  giving  i  and  u  the  narrow,  i  and 
u  the  corresponding  wide  sounds.  This  may,  indeed,  very  well 
have  been  the  actual  distinction  made. 

Perhaps  the  most  hopeless  distinctions  to  learn  without  a 
teacher  are  those  of  intonation.  And  yet  the  tones  in  Chinese 
and  other  East-Asiatic  languages  cannot  be  ignored,  for  they 
are  essential  to  intelligibility.  A  very  simple  memoria  technica 
pronunciation  for  the  Chinese  tones  consists  in  adding  sounds 
to  the  monosyllabic  Chinese  root-words.  Thus,  if  we  adopt 
the  deep  sound  of  (u)  as  the  symbolic  exponent  of  the  low 
level  tone,  (i)  of  the  rising  and  (a)  of  the  falling  tone,  we  are 
able  to  differentiate  (wenu)  '  hear '  from  (wena)  '  ask,'  (wa^u) 
1  king '  from  (wa^i)  '  depart.'  If  the  word  ends  in  a  vowel, 
corresponding  consonants  may  be  added,  of  which  there  is  a 
considerable  choice,  as  only  a  limited  number  of  consonants 
occur  finally  in  the  pronunciations  of  Chinese  ordinarily  adopted 
by  European  beginners.  Here,  again,  the  student  who  after- 
wards gets  access  to  native  teachers  will  have  the  great 
advantage  of  knowing  beforehand  the  intonation  of  each  word, 
and  will  have  no  difficulty  in  dropping  his  phonetic  props  and 
substituting  the  real  tones ;  while  if  he  had  attempted  to  pro- 
nounce them  theoretically,  he  would  certainly  have  got  into 
wrong  habits  of  pronunciation  which  it  would  perhaps  be 
difficult  for  him  to  get  rid  of. 


36     THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

Learning  a  Foreign  Alphabet 

The  process  of  learning  new  alphabets  and  new  systems  of 
writing  implies  the  establishing  of  various  visual  associations. 
But  these  associations  may  be  of  different  kinds,  and  some  may 
be  much  easier  to  establish  than  others. 

In  the  first  place,  it  makes  a  good  deal  of  difference  whether 
the  language  is  already  familiar — as  when  English  people  learn 
an  English  shorthand  system,  or  Chinese  boys  learn  to  write 
the  Chinese  characters — or  unfamiliar,  as  in  the  traditional 
method  of  learning  Oriental  languages.  An  extreme  form  of 
this  method  is  well  described  in  the  following  extract  from 
Derembourg  and  Spiro's  Chrestomathie  elimentaire  de  V Arabe 
litteral  (Paris,  1892):  '  the  only  practical  method  of  beginning 
the  study  of  a  language  is  to  take  a  piece  written  in  the  language 
one  wishes  to  learn,  and  force  oneself  to  translate  even  before 
one  knows  how  to  decipher  the  characters.'  With  such  a 
method  as  this  one  can  hardly  be  surprised  to  learn  from  the 
same  preface  that  '  the  first  burst  of  enthusiasm  in  those  who 
begin  Oriental  studies  is  often  folio  wed,  even  in  the  case  of  the 
most  talented,  by  a  profound  discouragement,  when  they  recog- 
nize the  difficulty  of  an  exploration  undertaken  without  guide 
or  compass.'  But  there  is  a  guide  and  compass,  and  it  is— a 
transcription  such  as  that  used  by  Barbs  in  teaching  Persian 
(P-  33)-  If  approached  in  the  way  advocated  by  Messrs. 
Derembourg  and  Spiro,  Arabic  is  certainly  what  they  call  it — 
'  the  most  inaccessible  of  the  Semitic  languages.'  With  a 
transcription  it  is  no  longer  inaccessible. 

The  method  of  beginning  with  transcriptions  put  the  foreign 
on  a  level  with  the  native  learner.  In  fact,  as  regards  most 
Oriental  languages,  the  foreigner  will  have  the  advantage  over 
the  native,  to  whom  his  own  written  language  is  often  a 
foreign  language,  near  enough,  however,  to  the  colloquial 
language  to  cause  constant  cross-associations,  as  we  see  in 
comparing  the  vowel  -  structure  of  the  present  tenses  in 
classical  and  modern  Arabic.  The  foreigner  can,  if  he 
chooses,  begin  his  study  on  a  transliteration  of  the  old 
classical  form  of  the  language,  although  at  present  there  do  not 
seem  to  be  any  text-books  on  this  principle  for  classical  Arabic. 

Next  to  a  good  transliteration,  the  greatest  help  in  learning 
an  alphabet  is  to  establish  definite  associations  between  the 
symbol   and   its  sound.     If  the  required  associations  are  not 


FOREIGN   ALPHABETS  37 

already  provided,  it  is  advisable  to  make  artificial  ones  by 
means  of  '  nomic  pronunciation.'  If  the  system  of  writing  is  a 
mixture  of  disguised  pictures  and  phonetic  elements,  as  in 
Chinese,  such  associations  are  generally  difficult  and  often 
impossible  to  establish.  Such  writings  must  be  learnt  mainly 
by  eye. 

But  there  are  some  general  principles  which  apply  to  all 
systems  of  writing. 

One  of  the  most  important  of  these  is  that  we  should  learn 
to  recognize  the  characters  by  eye  before  attempting  to  write 
them.  The  general  fault  of  those  who  learn  a  new  system  of 
writing  is  that  they  are  in  too  great  a  hurry  to  begin  writing  it. 
Nothing  is  more  common  than  to  hear  people  who  have  learnt 
a  little  shorthand  say,  '  I  gave  up  Pitman's  shorthand  because 
even  after  I  had  learnt  to  write  it  at  the  rate  of  sixty  words  a 
minute  I  could  not  read  what  I  had  written.'  The  beginner 
should,  therefore,  resolutely  abstain  from  writing  until  he  can 
read  with  a  certain  fluency. 

When  he  can  do  this,  he  may  begin  to  write.  It  is,  indeed, 
advisable  to  give  some  time  to  writing,  even  if  the  learner  only 
wants  to  read  the  language,  for  the  muscular  sensations  that 
accompany  the  act  of  writing  undeniably  strengthen  the  asso- 
ciations of  the  eye.  If  the  characters  are  complicated,  the 
learner  will  do  well  to  get  into  the  habit  of  writing  with  his 
forefinger — that  is,  imitating  the  movements  of  the  pen  or 
brush — simultaneously  with  his  reading.  He  must  take  care  to 
write  each  stroke  in  its  proper  order — writing,  for  instance,  the 
top  stroke  last  in  Sanskrit.  In  Chinese  the  order  of  the  strokes 
is  of  the  greatest  importance,  and  is  an  essential  help  in 
learning  the  running-hand. 

An  equally  important  principle  is  that  of  learning  the 
characters,  as  far  and  as  soon  as  possible,  in  connected  texts, 
or  at  least  in  sentences  and  complete  words.  It  is,  of  course, 
best  to  begin  with  texts  with  which  one  is  already  familiar  in 
transcriptions.  Under  such  circumstances  there  is  really  no 
harm  in  following  Messrs.  Derembourg  and  Spiro's  advice  by 
beginning  to  read  before  mastering  the  details  of  the  alphabet. 
The  usual  method  is  to  give  the  learner  the  complete  alpha- 
bet with  all  its  complexities,  then  suddenly  to  cease  all  trans- 
literation, and  give  him  a  string  of  disconnected  words  to 
decipher  without  even  translations,  or  anything  to  identify  the 
words. 


CHAPTER   V 

VARIETIES   OF   PRONUNCIATION 

Phonetic  notation  does  not  necessarily  imply  phonetic  spell- 
ing. If  we  found  picture  written  in  Broad  Romic  (piktjus),  we 
should  not  admit  this  as  a  spelling  of  English  as  it  actually 
exists :  we  should  shrewdly  suspect  the  speller  of  a  burning 
desire  to  reform  English  spelling  and  English  pronunciation  at 
one  blow.  If  our  reformer  were  to  go  into  the  other  extreme, 
and  write  (pikta),  we  should  admit  the  correctness  of  this 
spelling,  but  only  for  the  vulgar  dialect :  we  should  refuse  to 
admit  any  spelling  but  (pikt/a)  as  a  representation  of  the 
educated  spoken  English  of  the  present  day. 

Artificial  Pronunciation 

This  use  of  a  phonetic  notation  to  represent  imaginary  and 
non-existing  pronunciations  is  especially  frequent  in  the  case  of 
1  gradations,'  such  as  (Saet)  demonstrative  and  (Sat)  relative 
pronoun  and  conjunction,  the  tendency  being  to  confound 
these  two  distinct  words  under  the  fuller  form  (Saet).  So  also 
those  who  wish  to  make  phonetic  spelling  a  protest  against  the 
natural  development  of  the  spoken  language  ignore  such  '  weak ' 
or  unemphatic  forms  as  (im)  pronoun  and  (kaant),  and  insist 
on  writing  the  '  strong '  forms  (him,  ksen  not)  everywhere, 
regardless  of  distinctions  of  emphasis  and  position  in  the 
sentence.  Even  those  who  admit  that  the  obscurer  and  shorter 
forms  are  under  certain  definite  conditions  of  want  of  stress 
and  emphasis  universal  in  natural  educated  speech,  maintain 
that  the  fuller  forms  are  more  '  correct '  and  elegant,  and,  at 
any  rate,  that  foreigners  ought  to  discard  the  weak  forms,  and 
thereby  make  their  pronunciation  more  distinct,  while  at  the 
same  time  setting  a  good  example  to  the  natives. 

38 


VARIETIES   OF   PRONUNCIATION  39 

The  answer  to  this  is,  that  the  first  aim  of  foreigners  who 
come  to  England  is  to  understand  the  natives  and  make  them- 
selves understood  by  them.  If  the  foreigner  has  never  seen 
such  a  form  as  (kaant)  written,  he  will  not  be  able  to  under- 
stand it  when  he  hears  it  spoken ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
even  if  he  does  not  make  himself  unintelligible  by  saying  (keen 
not)  under  circumstances  where  every  one  else  says  (kaant),  it 
is  in  the  end  the  simplest  and  best  course  to  content  himself 
with  speaking  as  well  as  the  average  educated  Englishman.  In 
some  German  schools  great  care  is  taken  to  teach  the  pupils 
the  correct  English  sounds  by  phonetic  methods-  and  with 
remarkable  success ;  but  when,  as  is  too  often  the  case,  the 
weak  forms,  such  as  (Sat,  <5a  =  Sea,  /al),  are  ignored,  and  such 
words  as  hol'day,  Oxford  are  made  to  rhyme  with  day  and.  ford 
instead  of  being  pronounced  (holidi,  oksfad),  the  result  is  that 
the  pupils  speak  a  language  which,  though  made  up  of  English 
sounds,  is  as  a  whole  quite  un-English,  so  that  when  they  come 
to  England,  they  have  to  unlearn  their  pronunciation,  and 
make  the — generally  unsuccessful — attempt  to  construct  a  new 
one  on  the  basis  of  the  laws  of  gradation.  It  is  a  pity  their 
teachers  do  not  realize  that  even  so  slight  a  change  as  that  of 
(hau  d  ju  duw)  into  (hau  du  ju  duw)  makes  the  sentence 
un-English,  however  perfect  the  individual  sounds  may  be. 

There  is  more  excuse  for  teaching  an  artificial  pronuncia- 
tion of  such  languages  as  German  and  Italian,  where  the  multi- 
plicity of  educated  dialects  resulting  from  want  of  centralization 
has  made  it  difficult  to  settle  which  is  the  standard,  or  how  a 
standard  is  to  be  formed.  Nevertheless,  the  foreigners  who 
adopt  the  so-called  '  theatre-German '  (biilwendeutsch)  pronunci- 
ation would  certainly  make  themselves  ridiculous,  as  this  well- 
meant  attempt  to  set  up  a  standard  of  pronunciation  is  not 
founded  on  any  rational  linguistic  principles.  Nothing,  for 
instance,  can  be  more  monstrous  than  the  recommendation  to 
pronounce  final  g  as  a  voice  stop. 

In  all  languages  the  pronunciation  of  the  stage  is  merely  a 
special  development  of  the  ordinary  educated  colloquial  pro- 
nunciation. In  such  languages  as  French  and  English,  where 
all  educated  people  speak  practically  the  same  dialect,  there 
need  be  but  little  separation  between  the  colloquial  and  the 
oratorical  pronunciation  ;  and  with  us,  at  least,  the  stage  has  no 
authority  in  questions  of  pronunciation. 

But  in  French  and  most   other  languages    there  is  still  a 


4o     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

tendency — which  may  be  observed  in  English  also — to  make 
the  pronunciation  not  only  of  oratory  but  of  mere  reading  aloud 
distinct  from  that  of  everyday  life,  as  is  shown  very  clearly  in 
the  liaisons.  Thus,  in  reading  aloud,  a  Frenchman  would 
sound  the  (t)  of  the  ending  -merit  before  a  vowel,  but  never  in 
speaking. 

Here  the  principle  of  association  comes  in.  To  a  French- 
man the  ending  -ment  suggests  primarily  the  pronunciation 
(-ma)  before  a  vowel  as  well  as  a  consonant ;  but  when  he 
speaks  or  reads  to  an  audience,  he  makes  an  effort  to  sound  the 
(t)  before  a  vowel ;  just  as  an  Englishman  in  speaking  slowly 
and  solemnly  may  make  (kaant)  into  (kaen  not),  although  in 
English  there  is  no  necessity  felt  for  departing  from  the  col- 
loquial pronunciation.  It  is  evident  that  the  first  and  most 
immediate  associations  of  the  foreign  learner  ought  to  be  with 
the  colloquial  forms.  When  he  has  learnt  these,  he  will  be  on 
a  level  with  the  educated  native,  and,  like  him,  can  afterwards 
learn  the  more  artificial  pronunciation,  and  thus  establish  a 
series  of  secondary  oratorical  associations.  If  his  associations 
are  primarily  with  the  oratorical  forms,  his  ordinary  conversa- 
tion will  be  unnatural  and  offensive  to  the  native  ear. 

Degrees  of  Colloquialism 

But  there  are  degrees  of  colloquialism.  In  all  languages  the 
pronunciation  may  vary  according  to  the  degree  of  familiarity 
between  the  speakers.  Even  in  England  a  young  man  will 
sometimes  unconsciously  modify  his  pronunciation  in  speaking 
to  a  strange  lady  or  an  older  man. 

The  mood  of  the  speaker,  too,  may  have  an  effect.  Tension 
of  mind — as  in  giving  definite  directions,  explaining  a  difficulty, 
impatient  command  —  is  naturally  accompanied  by  greater 
vigour  of  enunciation ;  while  indifference  and  languor  show 
themselves  in  half-finished  consonants  and  curtailed  sound- 
groups.  We  can  hear  in  English  the  sharp  snap  of  what! 
degenerate  in  the  mouth  of  the  same  speaker  into  the  languid 
(woh)  or  almost  (waa),  which  may  further  degenerate  into  a 
mere  grunt. 

Again,  the  pronunciation  of  the  same  person  may  vary 
according  to  the  speed  of  utterance.  This  is  very  marked  in 
French,  where  the  elimination  of  the  weak  (9)  depends  greatly 
on  speed.     In  Passy's  Elementarbuch  the  texts  are  given  in  the 


VARIETIES  OF   PRONUNCIATION  41 

pronunciation  of  medium  speed,  a  quicker  and  a  slower  pro- 
nunciation being  occasionally  given  in  the  notes.  Thus  to  the 
normal  (6  vje  d  sone  msj<£)  and  (i  j  an  a  da  tut  le  kulcecer)  cor- 
respond the  slow  (6  vje  d9  sone  m3sj<£)  and  the  quick  (j  an  a  d 
tut  le  kulcecer),  and  to  the  medium  (tstrDrdimsr)  (si  vu  pit),  the 
slow  (tkstraordinefr)  and  the  quick  (sj  u  pit). 

It  is  evident  that  the  foreigner  should  aim  at  what  may  be 
called  a  medium  colloquial  style  of  pronunciation.  It  is  pain- 
ful and  incongruous  to  hear  the  rapid  pronunciation  of  clipped 
speech  reproduced  in  a  slow,  solemn,  oratorical  tempo.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  much  more  irrational  to  teach  a  foreigner 
pronunciations  which  never  occur  in  the  colloquial  speech  of 
natives.  The  best  general  advice  is  therefore :  never  be  ora- 
torical ;  be  colloquial,  but  not  too  colloquial. 

The  revolt  against  artificial  standards  of  pronunciation  some- 
times tempts  phonetic  enthusiasts  into  constructing  colloquial 
monstrosities  when  dealing  with  a  foreign  language— they 
become  more  colloquial  than  the  most  slovenly  native.  Thus 
a  foreigner  who  has  learnt  to  obscure  weak-stressed  vowels  in 
English — who  has  learnt  to  say  (kserikta,  maagit,  izri-sl)  in  spite 
of  the  associations  of  the  written  forms  character,  Margate, 
Israel — is  apt  to  get  reckless,  and  go  too  far  in  this  direction, 
making  perhaps  (no#wijd39n  naepsaek)  into  (nswijd33n  naepssk), 
pronunciations  which  I  remember  having  seen  actually  given. 

Vulgarisms  should  be  avoided ;  not  because  they  are  in 
themselves  ugly  or  less  logical,  or  in  any  way  more  objection- 
able than  the  corresponding  polite  forms,  but  simply  because 
they  belong  to  a  different  dialect.  But  we  must  distinguish 
between  real  and  theoretical  vulgarisms :  that  is,  between  forms 
which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  do  not  occur  in  educated  speech, 
and  those  which  are  commonly  called  '  vulgar,'  and  yet  do 
occur  in  educated  speech.  Of  theoretical  vulgarisms,  some  are 
simply  universal  in  educated  speech,  such  as  the  loss  of  the 
consonant  (r)  in  lord  by  which  this  word  becomes  identical  in 
pronunciation  with  laud,  others  widely  spread,  such  as  the  (r)  in 
idea(r)  of,  f/idia(r)  Office.  But  as  this  latter  colloquialism  is  not 
universal,  the  insertion  of  the  (r)  generally  occurring  only  in 
rapid  speech  and  in  closely  connected  groups  of  words,  so  that 
its  omission  does  not  produce  any  effect  of  unreality  or  artifici- 
ality, it  would  be  mere  perversity  in  the  foreigner  to  imitate  it 
in  his  slow  pronunciation.  But  while  it  is  a  real  vulgarism  to 
omit  (h)  in  full-stressed  words,  it  is  a  disagreeable  affectation 


42     THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

not  to  drop  it  in  such  collocations  as  tell  him.  This  affectation 
is  widely  spread ;  but  it  is  always  artificial ;  so  that  the  speakers 
who  try  to  keep  it  up  consistently  are  always  liable  to  fail.  For 
these  reasons  a  foreigner  should  avoid  it :  that  is,  he  should 
say  (tel  -im),  keeping  the  (h)  for  the  emphatic  (tel  him  not 

h93). 

The  statements  of  unphonetic  natives  about  vulgarisms  and 
other  varieties  of  pronunciation  are  never  reliable,  and  should 
be  listened  to  with  great  caution.  A  foreigner  once  asked  a 
learned  Englishman  which  was  right,  (aast)  or  (aaskt),  as  the 
preterite  of  ask;  and  was  told  that  there  was  no  such  pro- 
nunciation as  (aast).  A  minute  after  the  learned  man  was 
heard  to  say  (sou  ij  aast  im  an  aast  im  9n  aast  im  sgen).  On 
another  occasion  a  well  -  known  authority  on  the  English 
language  began  in  a  mixed  company  to  denounce  the  vulgarisms 
in  my  Eleme?itarbuch  des  gesprochenen  Englisch.  A  German 
pupil  of  mine  who  was  present  sent  a  whisper  round  the  circle, 
telling  them  to  listen  carefully  for  these  very  vulgarisms  in  the 
authority's  own  pronunciation.  The  latter  then  began  a  lengthy 
harangue ;  and,  to  his  surprise,  was  continually  interrupted  by 
bursts  of  laughter  from  his  audience. 

Standards  of  Pronunciation 

As  the  educated  pronunciation  of  a  language  is  never  abso- 
lutely uniform,  the  question  arises,  which  is  the  standard  ?  To 
the  foreigner  this  is  not  a  sentimental  or  aesthetic  question,  but 
a  purely  practical  one. 

As  the  literary  languages  of  most  countries  are  simply  the 
fossilized  dialects  of  their  respective  capitals — literary  French 
being  nothing  but  the  written  form  of  the  older  Parisian  dialect, 
literary  English  of  the  older  London  dialect — there  seems 
every  reason  why  the  dialect  of  the  capital  should  be  taken  as 
the  standard  of  the  spoken  language  as  well.  Practical  considera- 
tions point  to  the  same  view.  First,  there  is  the  numerical 
preponderance  of  the  speakers  of  the  dialect  of  the  capital. 
Secondly,  foreigners  naturally  gravitate  to  the  capital,  or,  at  any 
rate,  make  it  their  starting-point.  Even  in  Germany,  where 
there  is  much  less  centralization  than  in  France  and  England, 
it  is  surely  more  practical  for  the  foreigner  to  learn  the  educated 
speech  of  Berlin  than  that  of  some  provincial  town  where  on 
abstract  grounds  '  the  best  German '  is  said  to  be  spoken. 


VARIETIES   OF   PRONUNCIATION  43 

Even  within  the  narrowest  limits  there  may  be  differences  of 
pronunciation.  Even  in  educated  Southern  English  we  some- 
times find  a  word  pronounced  in  several  ways.  When  Dr. 
Johnson  was  asked  by  a  lady  whether  he  pronounced  the  word 
neitlier  as  (naiSar)  or  (niiSsr),  he  replied  (neeSar,  msedaem). 
The  last  pronunciation  is  now  extinct,  but  the  other  two  still 
seem  to  be  about  equally  frequent.  The  fluctuations  of  French 
pronunciation  are  even  greater.  In  such  cases  the  learner 
must  select  one  pronunciation  and  keep  to  it.  It  follows,  of 
course,  that  his  text-books  should,  as  far  as  possible,  give  a 
uniform  pronunciation,  no  matter  how  arbitrary  the  selection 
may  be. 

Pronunciation  of  Rare  Words 

For  rare  words  which  the  learner  meets  for  the  first  time  in 
nomic  texts,  he  will  require  a  pronouncing  dictionary.  Such  a 
dictionary  may  be  shortened  and  made  more  convenient  by  the 
omission  of  all  the  commoner  words  which  the  learner  who  has 
read  a  few  phonetic  texts  cannot  help  knowing  thoroughly. 

The  learner  should  not  be  too  scrupulous  about  the  pro- 
nunciation of  rare  foreign  words  in  the  language  he  is  studying, 
such  as  barbarous  geographical  names,  which  may  fill  the 
newspapers  for  a  few  weeks,  and  then  be  quite  forgotten. 
When  a  foreigner  wants  to  know  exactly  how  such  a  name  as 
Ujiji  ought  to  be  pronounced,  he  should  be  told  to  guess  at  it 
by  analogy,  taking  care  not  to  anglicize  it — in  fact,  to  do  what  an 
English  reader  would  do  with  an  unfamiliar  word  he  had  never 
heard  spoken,  but  only  seen  in  print.  When  a  foreigner  reflects 
that  such  a  word  as  Zulu  is  not  pronounced  (zjuwljuw)  but 
(zuwluw),  he  must  see  that  it  would  be  contrary  to  analogy  to 
give  the  first  i  in  Ujiji  the  English  value  (ai) ;  it  must  be  either 
(ij)  or  (i) — it  does  not  matter  which.  Such  a  word  cannot  have 
a  fixed  traditional  pronunciation. 

In  introducing  words  from  our  own  language  into  the  foreign 
language  we  are  speaking,  we  must  be  careful  about  trying  to 
adapt  its  pronunciation  to  that  of  the  foreign  language ;  where 
there  is  doubt,  it  is  safest  to  keep  the  native  pronunciation 
unchanged.  I  remember  having  constantly  to  correct  a  Nor- 
wegian who  pronounced  the  name  of  the  Norwegian  town 
Bergen  as  (bssdsan).  I  told  him  that  if  he  must  anglicize  it, 
let  him  call  it  (btsgsn),  which  would  be  the  average  educated 


44    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

Englishman's  imitation  of  the  native  pronunciation.  So  also, 
when  an  Englishman  uses  such  a  German  name  as  Beethoven  in 
speaking  French,  it  is  much  safer  to  keep  the  German  pro- 
nunciation than  to  try  and  make  up  a  French  pronunciation 
with  a  final  nasal  vowel. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  a  native  name  has  two  pronunciations, 
one  of  which  agrees  with  the  spelling,  the  latter  is  generally 
sure  to  be  the  most  modern  one,  and  should  therefore  be 
adopted  by  a  foreigner,  who,  for  instance,  will  find  himself  on 
the  side  of  the  increasing  majority  if  he  pronounces  such  names 
as  Cirencester  and  Abergavenny  as  they  are  written.  If  he  does 
the  same  with  Coke,  Home,  Cowper,  instead  of  calling  them 
(kuk,  hjuwm,  kuwpa),  he  will  at  least  have  many  mispronouncers 
on  his  side. 


CHAPTER  VI 

GENERAL  STUDY  OF  PHONETICS 

Phonetics,  like  all  other  branches  of  knowledge,  has  its  own 
special  difficulties.  But  much  of  it  is  perfectly  easy,  if  approached 
with  an  unprejudiced  mind.  It  is  a  subject  in  which  a  little 
knowledge  goes  a  long  way. 

In  dealing  with  a  single  language  there  is  no  absolute 
necessity  for  the  pupils'  going  through  a  complete  course  of 
phonetics :  the  teacher  can  give  them  what  they  want  from 
time  to  time. 

Nevertheless,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  best  results  are 
obtained  on  the  basis  of  a  previous  course  of  general  phonetics, 
which,  again,  must  be  based  on  a  practical  analysis  of  the 
learner's  own  sounds.  Divergencies  of  pronunciation  and  many 
other  considerations  make  it  impossible  to  tell  beforehand 
whether  or  not  a  knowledge  of  a  given  sound  will  be  a  help  in 
acquiring  the  pronunciation  of  a  given  language. 

There  is  every  reason  why  the  study  of  phonetics  should 
begin  at  an  early  age.  It  requires  no  precocity  of  mental 
development,  and  there  is  nothing  abstract  about  it :  on  the 
contrary,  it  appeals  mainly  to  the  love  of  the  concrete  and  the 
experimental,  and  the  tendency  to  imitation  which  are  character- 
istic of  the  undeveloped  intellect.  It  trains  the  young  mind  to 
habits  of  observation.  It  gives  a  command  of  the  organs  of 
speech  which  has  a  most  beneficial  effect  on  the  learner's 
pronunciation  of  his  own  language. 

Apparatus :   Diagrams,   Models,   Phonograph 

The  methods  of  teaching  phonetics  already  indicated  may 
be  supplemented  in  various  ways. 

One  is  the  use  of  diagrams  of  the  organs  of  speech  and  their 

45 


46     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

positions  in  forming  the  sounds.  Vietor's  Elemente  der  Phonetik 
will  be  found  useful  in  this  respect.  The  best  diagrams  of  the 
vowel-positions  will  be  found  in  Grandgent's  German  and 
English  Sounds. 

Models  of  the  organs  of  speech  would  be  useful,  if  it  were 
possible  to  obtain  satisfactory  ones.  Those  recommended  by 
Vietor  are  not  very  good ;  the  best  of  them  seems  to  be  the 
enlarged  model  of  the  larynx  and  glottis. 

We  hear  a  good  deal  nowadays  about  the  phonograph  and 
the  help  it  is  in  studying  languages.  But  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  whenever  we  have  access  to  native  speakers,  the 
phonograph  is  superfluous,  for,  at  the  best,  it  cannot  speak 
better  than  a  native.  And  where  we  have  to  rely  entirely  on 
the  phonographic  record,  its  testimony  is  sometimes  defective 
on  points  where  information  is  most  needed  :  it  fails  to  repro- 
duce shades  of  breath-sounds  and  the  less  sonorous  elements  of 
speech.  It  succeeds  best  with  sounds  of  full  vocality,  and  in 
giving  the  general  effect  produced  by  the  organic  basis,  and  by 
stress  and  intonation.  Its  chief  use  will  probably  be  in  re- 
viving recollections  of  pieces  heard  direct  from  native  speakers. 

The  idea  that  the  phonograph  can  be  used  in  schools  as  a 
substitute  for  a  trained  phonetician  shows  a  misconception  of 
the  problem  of  teaching  phonetics. 

Experimental    Phonetics 

Of  late  years  we  have  heard  still  more  about  experimental 
phonetics,  that  is,  the  exact  determination  and  measurement  of 
the  organic  positions  and  actions  by  means  of  special  apparatus. 
But  as  yet  the  performance  of  experimental  phonetics  has  fallen 
far  short  of  its  promise.  What  ought  to  be  its  most  important 
problem  — the  exact  determination  of  the  vowel-positions — is 
still  beyond  its  reach,  except  by  the  laborious  and  sometimes 
uncertain  method  introduced  by  Grandgent,  the  results  of  which 
are  described  in  his  above-mentioned  book.  But  his  apparatus 
has  the  merit  of  extreme  simplicity.  All  attempts,  too,  to 
determine  by  purely  objective  experimental  methods  the  pitch 
of  spoken  vowels  and  to  record  the  intonations  of  natural 
speech  have  hitherto  been  failures. 

In  fact,  wherever  we  really  want  information  it  leaves  us 
more  or  less  in  the  lurch.  Most  of  its  results  are  simply  con- 
firmations of  what  we  know  already.     The  really  great  results 


GENERAL  STUDY  OF   PHONETICS  47 

have  been  obtained  without  any  apparatus.  We  do  not  require 
apparatus  to  round  and  unround  vowels  systematically  and 
exhaustively,  and  it  is  by  such  simple  methods  that  Bell's 
vowel-scheme  was  constructed. 

One  awkward  fact  about  experimental  phonetics  is  that  most 
of  those  who  work  at  it  have  no  adequate  practical  knowledge 
of  phonetics  :  they  are  unable  to  lengthen  a  vowel  without 
modifying  it;  some  of  them  persist  in  regarding  their  own 
imperfect  pronunciation  of  foreign  languages  as  perfect,  and 
cannot  write  the  simplest  phonetic  notation. 

The  apparatus  of  the  experimental  phonetician  is  often  ex- 
pensive and  inaccessible,  delicate  and  complicated,  so  that  it 
requires  an  expert  to  manipulate  it  with  any  chance  of  success. 

It  also  requires  some  practice  to  speak  into  the  funnel  of  a 
phonograph  or  one  of  the  above-mentioned  apparatus,  without 
either  becoming  inaudible  on  the  one  hand  or  unnatural  on 
the  other. 

That  experimental  methods  may  lead  to  very  unsatisfactory 
results  is  shown  by  Czermak's  analysis  of  the  Arabic  gutturals, 
which  is  an  analysis  not  of  actual  sounds,  but  of  his  own, 
apparently  very  defective  imitations  of  them.1 

We  cannot  wonder,  then,  that  there  is  a  certain  antagonism 
between  the  unphonetic  physiologists  and  physicists  who  work 
at  experimental  phonetics  and  the  practical  phoneticians. 

At  the  same  time,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  simple  apparatus 
with  which  we  could  measure  exactly  instead  of  going  by  sub- 
jective impressions  would  be  a  great  boon  to  all  phoneticians. 
Experimental  phoneticians  may  rest  assured  that  as  soon  as 
they  succeed  in  providing  such  apparatus,  it  will  be  warmly 
welcomed  by  all  classes  of  phoneticians.  At  present  it  would  be 
a  great  mistake  in  the  beginner  to  neglect  acquiring  a  thorough 
practical  command  of  his  organs  of  speech  and  of  sounds  in 
general  for  the  sake  of  working  at  experimental  phonetics. 

Phonetic   Dictation 

Phonetic  dictation2  is  very  stimulating  to  the  pupils,  and 
serves  as  a  useful  test  of  their  acoustic  powers,  while  at  the 
same  time  it  obliges  them  to  free  themselves  from  any  trammel- 
ing associations  with  the  nomic  spelling,  and  thus  developes 

1  See  my  paper  (<5i  serabik  )>routsaundz)  in  MF  1895.  4. 

2  See  J.  Passy's  paper  (la  dikte  fonetik)  in  MF  1894,  pp.  34,  50. 


48     THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

the  dormant  faculty  of  phonetic  observation.  At  first  the 
dictation  should  be  in  the  pupil's  native  language,  and  he  should 
be  expected  only  to  write  down  the  significant  distinctions  of 
sounds  in  some  easy  Romic  notation  without  any  attempt  to 
mark  stress  or  intonation.  It  is  surprising  to  see  what  mistakes 
are  made,  partly  through  confusion  with  the  nomic  spelling, 
partly  through  complete  absence  of  the  faculty  of  observing 
even  the  broadest  distinctions  when  unaided  by  visual  associa- 
tions. When  the  pupils  can  write  with  fluency  and  correctness  on 
this  basis,  they  should  be  trained  to  add  stress-marks,  and  then 
simple  tone-marks.  Then  the  same  stages  should  be  repeated 
in  the  foreign  language.  Advanced  pupils  in  general  phonetics 
may  be  cautiously  exercised  in  writing  down  nonsense-words 
consisting  at  first  of  a  certain  limited  number  of  sounds.  Thus 
the  teacher  may  tell  them  that  all  the  vowels  will  be  narrow, 
that  there  will  be  no  mixed  vowels,  no  front  consonants,  and 
so  on.  For  this  advanced  dictation  the  organic  alphabet  should 
be  used. 

Advantages  of  Phonetics 

The  first  and  most  evident  advantage  of  phonetics  is  the 
independence  it  gives  us.  In  the  first  place,  it  makes  us  inde- 
pendent of  residence  abroad.  Even  if  the  learner  intends  to 
go  to  the  country  where  the  language  is  spoken,  it  is  a  great 
advantage  to  him  to  start  with  a  thorough  practical  knowledge 
of  the  sounds  in  which  he  is  to  practise  himself. 

Secondly,  phonetics  makes  us  independent  of  native  teachers. 
It  is  certain  that  a  phonetically  trained  Englishman  who  has  a 
clear  knowledge  of  the  relations  between  French  and  English 
sounds  can  teach  French  sounds  to  English  people  better  than 
an  unphonetic  Frenchman  who  is  unable  to  communicate  his 
pronunciation  to  his  pupils,  and  perhaps  speaks  a  dialectal  or 
vulgar  form  of  French. 

Again,  phonetics  enables  an  intelligent  adult  to  get  a  sound 
elementary  knowledge  of  the  sounds  of  a  foreign  language 
without  any  help  from  outside— that  is,  if  he  has  an  adequate 
phonetic  analysis  and  transcription  to  work  with. 

But  the  gain  of  a  phonetic  grasp  of  a  language  extends  far 
beyond  such  special  considerations.  A  secure  grasp  of  the 
sounds  of  a  language  is  a  great  strengthening  of  the  mastery  of 


GENERAL   STUDY   OF   PHONETICS  49 

its  forms  and  meanings.  A  minute  discrimination  of  similar 
sounds  in  closely  allied  languages  is  the  surest  safeguard 
against  otherwise  inevitable  confusions,  as  when  we  keep  up 
the  slight  distinction  between  the  Norwegian  and  the  Swedish 
(ii)  in  hus,  'house,'  the  Swedish  sound  being  more  advanced 
and  nearer  (y). 

Hence  also  the  literary  and  aesthetic  use  of  phonetics. 
Phonetics  alone  can  breathe  life  into  the  dead  mass  of  letters 
which  constitutes  a  written  language;  it  alone  can  bring  the 
rustic  dialogues  of  our  novels  before  every  intelligent  reader  as 
living  realities,  and  make  us  realize  the  living  power  and  beauty 
of  the  ancient  classical  languages  in  prose  and  verse. 

Phonetics  is  not  merely  an  indirect  strengthener  of  gramma- 
tical associations,  it  is  an  essential  part  of  grammar  itself.  It 
enables  us  to  state  grammatical  and  philological  laws  with  a 
brevity  and  definiteness  which  would  be  otherwise  unattainable, 
as  when  we  condense  the  information  that  under  certain 
circumstances  in  a  given  language  d  becomes  /,  g  becomes  k, 
and  b  becomes  /,  into  the  simple  statement  that  '  voice  stops 
become  breath.'  In  Eliot's  Finnish  Grammar  (p.  n)we  find 
the  following  statement :  '  The  final  e  of  a  dissyllabic  stem 
disappears  in  nouns  before  terminations  commencing  with  t, 
and  in  verbs  before  terminations  beginning  with  k  or  ;?,  pro- 
vided that  e  is  preceded  by  any  simple  consonant  but  k,  p,  v,  m, 
or  by  a  double  consonant  of  which  the  last  letter  is  t  or  s 
(except  ht).  Thus  from  the  stem  une, '  sleep,'  vuore, '  mountain,' 
vete,  'water'  (nominative  vest),  come  the  forms  ttnta,  vuor/a, 
vetta  .  .  .'  If  in  this  statement  we  substitute  for  the  negative 
and  purely  abstract  conception  of '  any  simple  consonant  but 
k,  /,  v,  m,'  the  positive  enumeration  of  the  consonants  left 
after  this  subtraction,  namely  r,  /,  s,  t,  n,  we  are  able  to  simplify 
it  still  further  by  saying  that  in  nouns  e  is  dropped  before  /  when 
the  e  is  preceded  by  a  forward  consonant,  the  evident  reason 
being  that  these  consonants  are  formed  in  the  same  place  as  /. 

A  knowledge  of  sentence  stress  and  intonation  is  not  only  an 
essential  part  of  elocution  and  correct  pronunciation,  but  is 
also  an  integral  part  of  the  syntax  of  many  languages.1 

In  short,  there  is  no  branch  of  the  study  of  language  which 
can  afford  to  dispense  with  phonetics. 

1  See  my  New  English  Grammar t  Part  II. 


CHAPTER  VII 

BEGIN  WITH    THE   SPOKEN   LANGUAGE 

The  second  main  axiom  of  living  philology  is  that  all  study  of 
language,  whether  theoretical  or  practical,  ought  to  be  based 
on  the  spoken  language. 

The  distinction  between  the  literary  and  the  colloquial  form 
of  the  same  language  has  considerably  complicated  the  problem 
of  learning  languages.  This  distinction  is  not  solely  the  result  of 
the  use  of  writing  and  printing,  for  even  such  unlettered  savages 
as  the  Andaman  islanders  have  an  archaic  poetical  dialect 
which  differs  considerably  from  their  ordinary  spoken  language ; 
but  writing — and,  still  more,  printing — have  naturally  increased 
the  divergence.  In  many  Oriental  languages  the  divergence  is 
so  great  that  the  colloquial  is  no  longer  a  mere  variation  of  the 
literary  form,  but  the  two  practically  constitute  distinct,  mutually 
unintelligible  languages. 

The  Spoken  the  Source  of  the  Written 
Language 

In  European  languages,  where  the  difference  is  much  less, 
most  grammarians  tacitly  assume  that  the  spoken  is  a  mere 
corruption  of  the  literary  language.  But  the  exact  contrary  is 
the  case :  it  is  the  spoken  which  is  the  real  source  of  the 
literary  language.  We  may  pick  out  the  most  far-fetched 
literary  words  and  forms  we  can  think  of,  but  we  shall  always 
find  that  they  are  derived  from  the  colloquial  speech  of  an 
earlier  period.  Even  such  forms  as  thou  hast,  he  hath,  were 
ordinary  colloquialisms  a  few  centuries  ago,  though  they  now 
survive  only  as  fossil,  dead  colloquialisms  side  by  side  with  the 
living  colloquialisms  you  have,  he  has.  Every  literary  language 
is,  in  fact,  a  mixture  of  colloquialisms  of  different  periods. 

Every  literary  language  must  indeed  in  its  first  beginnings 
be  purely  colloquial.  It  is  certainly  difficult  to  realize  that 
such  a  language  as  the  classical  Italian  of  Dante  and  Petrarch 
was  originally  nothing  but  a  rough  attempt  to  write  down 
what  were  then  considered  the  slovenly  colloquialisms  of  Late 

50 


BEGIN   WITH   THE   SPOKEN    LANGUAGE       51 

Latin ;  but  nevertheless  such  is  the  origin  not  only  of  Italian, 
but  of  all  the  other  Romance  languages  as  well.  The  tradi- 
tion of  the  origin  of  Italian  is  still  kept  up  in  the  word  for 
'  translate,'  namely  volgarizzare,  literally  '  make  popular.' 

Accordingly,  it  is  now  an  axiom  not  only  of  Romance 
philology,  but  of  philology  generally,  that  the  real  life  of 
language  is  better  seen  in  dialects  and  colloquial  forms  of 
speech  than  in  highly  developed  literary  languages,  such  as 
Greek,  Latin,  and  Sanskrit. 

Practical  Considerations 

Important  as  this  principle  is  from  a  scientific  point  of  view, 
it  is  still  more  so  from  a  practical  one,  and  for  the  following 
reasons : — 

If  we  compare  the  written  and  spoken  language  of  a  given 
period,  we  shall  find  that  the  literary  language  is  full  of  super- 
fluous words  and  phrases,  which  the  spoken  language  nearly 
always  gets  rid  of.  Thus  in  the  English  spoken  language  the 
idea  '  sky '  is  expressed  by  this  word  only,  while  in  the  literary 
language  it  may  also  be  expressed  by  heaven,  heavens,  firma- 
ment, welkin.  So  also  the  form  hath  was  still  used  in  literary 
prose  in  the  last  century  in  such  phrases  as  the  author  hath  .  .  .  , 
and  it  is  still  used  in  poetry  and  in  the  liturgical  language  of 
the  Bible  and  Prayer-book,  while  in  the  spoken  language  the 
only  form  used  is  has.  Again,  nothing  is  more  difficult  than  to 
give  definite  grammatical  rules  for  the  use  of  the  subjunctive 
mood  in  literary  English ;  in  the  spoken  language  the  subjunc- 
tive is  not  used  at  all  except  in  a  few  perfectly  definite  con- 
structions, such  as  if  it  were.  So  also  in  spoken  French  the 
two  most  difficult  tenses  of  the  verb,  the  preterite  indicative 
and  subjunctive,  have  been  supplanted  by  the  perfect.  So 
completely  is  the  preterite  obsolete  that  Passy,  in  his  translation 
of  the  Gospel  of  Luke  into  modern  French,  discards  it  entirely, 
as  in  the  beginning  of  the  parable  of  the  vineyard :  oen  am  a 
plaate  yn  vifi,  i  1  a  lwe  a  de  vinro,  e  il  e  parti  pur  loota  (20.  9). 
According  to  Passy  (Elementarbuch,  156),  it  occurs  only  in 
comic  imitations  of  the  South  French  dialect.  Even  in  German 
the  complicated  rules  for  the  inflection  of  proper  names — Luise, 
gen.  Luise'ns,  Cato,  Cato's,  plur.  Cato'ne,  Leibjdtz,  plur.  Leib- 
nitz'e — are  swept  away  bodily  in  the  spoken  language,  which, 
as  a  general  rule,  does  not  inflect  such  words  at  all. 


52     THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

Again,  in  literature  the  context  is  often  vague,  as  in  the 
Homeric  meropes  anthropoid  where  meropes  may  mean  any 
quality  that  can  be  predicated  of  men  generally.  So  also  in 
the  Sanskrit  Vedas  we  have  whole  hymns,  which,  when  epito- 
mized, leave  not  much  more  than  '  the  bright  shiner  (that  is, 
the  sun)  shines  brightly.'  In  simple  colloquial  prose,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  meaning  of  a  word  is  generally  quite  clear  from 
the  context.  The  spoken  language,  too,  is  far  stricter  in  its 
use  of  epithets  :  it  hardly  ever  introduces  an  adjective  or  other 
qualifier  except  to  convey  some  definite  information.  Thus  in 
ordinary  speech  we  do  not  talk  of  '  the  bright  sun '  or  '  the 
silver  moon,'  simply  because  the  epithets  convey  no  information 
— tell  us  nothing  that  is  not  already  implied  in  the  words  sun 
and  moon  themselves.  Even  such  a  phrase  as  '  the  sun  shines 
brightly'  has  an  uncolloquial  ring  about  it,  although  it  is  not 
exactly  anti-colloquial.  We  could  say  '  the  moon  is  bright 
to-night,'  because  this  really  conveys  information.  The  spoken 
language  also  prefers  a  simple  paratactic  arrangement  of  sen- 
tences. The  complicated  periods  of  literary  prose  would, 
indeed,  often  be  unintelligible  in  speech. 

We  see,  then,  that  the  advantage  as  regards  clearness  and 
definiteness  is  on  the  side  of  the  spoken  language :  by  starting 
from  the  spoken  language  we  have  less  to  learn,  and  we  learn 
it  accurately.  Everything  therefore  points  to  the  conclusion 
that  in  learned  foreign  languages  we  should  follow  the  natural 
order  in  which  we  learn  our  own  language :  that  is,  that  we 
should  begin  with  learning  the  spoken  language  thoroughly, 
and  then  go  on  to  the  literary  language. 

The  psychological  arguments  for  beginning  with  the  spoken 
language  are  precisely  analogous  to  those  for  beginning  with  a 
phonetic  transcription  (p.  12) :  if  we  learn  the  literary  and  the 
spoken  language  simultaneously,  cross-associations  are  inevi- 
table ;  and  the  only  possible  way  of  avoiding  or  minimizing 
these  cross-associations  is  to  learn  the  two  forms  of  the 
language  separately. 

The  question,  which  of  the  two  we  ought  to  begin  with,  is 
easily  answered. 

It  is  evident  that  our  strongest  and  most  direct  associations 
ought  to  be  with  the  spoken  language,  for  in  speaking  we  must 
nave  all  our  associations  between  ideas  and  words  in  perfect 
working- order :  we  have  no  time  to  pick  and  choose  our  words 


BEGIN  WITH   THE  SPOKEN   LANGUAGE       53 

and  constructions,  as  when  we  are  writing.  So  also  when 
others  are  speaking  to  us,  we  must  understand  each  sentence  at 
once,  or  the  whole  statement  becomes  unintelligible,  while  in 
reading,  as  in  writing,  we  can  pause  and  consider  as  often  as 
we  like. 

If,  then,  we  first  get  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  spoken 
form  of  the  foreign  language,  and  then  proceed  to  learn  its 
literary  form,  we  shall  be  in  exactly  the  same  position  as  regards 
relative  strength  of  associations  as  the  natives  themselves  :  we 
shall  think  in  the  spoken  language,  because  our  associations 
are  directly  with  it,,  while  at  the  same  time  we  are  able  to 
understand  the  literary  language,  and,  with  a  little  effort  at  first, 
to  write  it ;  but  we  are  no  more  able  to  speak  the  pure  literary 
language  than  a  native  is. 

As  it  is,  we  too  often  reverse  the  process,  and  so  do  foreigners 
who  learn  English.  They  first  of  all  imprint  firmly  on  their 
memories  the  obsolete  phraseology  of  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield, 
or,  at  the  best,  of  Washington  Irving's  Sketch-book,  then  add  a 
few  choice  Shakespearisms,  and  finally  season  this  heterogeneous 
mixture  with  such  modern  colloquialisms  as  they  can  gather 
from  the  pages  of  Punch  and  Dickens.  The  result  is  always 
unsatisfactory,  and  often  leads  to  unintelligibility.  Thus  I 
remember  a  case  in  which  a  German,  on  being  asked  how  a 
certain  lady  was,  replied  that  she  was  (rsept).  As  he  tapped 
his  forehead  at  the  same  time,  the  Englishman  thought  he 
meant  to  say  that  she  had  had  a  rap  or  knock  on  the  head ;  but 
after  a  long  discussion  and  many  vain  attempts  to  get  at  his 
meaning,  it  turned  out  that  he  was  thinking  of  Shakespeare's 
phrase  in  Macbeth,  '  how  our  partner's  rapt '  ( =  transported,  in 
an  ecstasy),  and  meant  to  convey  the  idea  that  she  was  out  of 
her  mind.  Another  foreigner,  a  Spaniard,  was  observed  to 
speak  English  with  perfect  grammatical  correctness,  but  with  a 
curious  old-fashioned  stateliness  of  diction,  which  was  at  first 
assumed  to  be  the  natural  accompaniment  of  the  blue  blood 
of  Spain ;  it  turned  out,  however,  that  the  sole  source  of  his 
colloquial  English  had  been  the  dialogues  in  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson's 
Rasselas.  I  remember  myself  that  when  I  first  began  to  talk 
German,  I  was  complimented  on  the  poetical  diction  I  used. 
It  is  said  that  when  Sir  Walter  Scott  talked  French  to  the 
ambassadors  of  Charles  IX.,  they  were  amused  and  often 
puzzled  to  hear  a  Scotch  adaptation  of  the  language  of  Froissart 
and  Joinville. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

DIFFICULTIES    OF    LANGUAGE 

Learning  a  language  means  overcoming  difficulties,  and  each 
language  has  its  own  peculiar  difficulties. 

External   Difficulties 

Some  of  the  difficulties  may  be  purely  external — due  not  to 
anything  in  the  language  itself,  but  to  the  circumstances  under 
which  it  is  learnt.  Perhaps  there  is  a  want  of  text-books  and 
other  helps;  the  beginner  is  perhaps  met  with  the  cheerful 
warning,  'You  will  have  to  make  your  own  dictionary,  you 
know.'  Or  there  may  be  text-books,  grammars,  dictionaries  in 
plenty,  but  not  in  the  learner's  native  language ;  thus  no  one 
can  learn  Finnish  without  knowing  Swedish,  and  to  many 
languages  Russian  is  the  only  key. 

The  difficulties  caused  by  the  written  form  of  the  language, 
such  as  the  complexity  of  its  alphabet — which,  again,  may  be 
the  result  of  the  writing  being  partly  hieroglyphic — the  ambiguity 
or  unphonetic  character  of  its  orthography,  are  all  purely 
external :  Arabic  is  still  Arabic  when  transcribed  into  Roman 
letters,  nor  is  Japanese  any  the  more  Japanese  for  being  written 
in  a  mixture  of  disguised  hieroglyphs  and  syllabic  alphabetic 
writing,  both  borrowed  from  China.  No  existing  system  of 
writing  is  anything  but  an  external  disguise  borrowed  from 
some  other  language  :  Arabic  is  disguised  Syriac  writing,  and 
the  Russian  alphabet  is  Byzantine  Greek. 

Relations  to  the  Native   Lano-uao-e 

There  is  another  class  of  difficulties  which  may  be  regarded 
as  partly  external,  partly  internal — those  which  depend  on  the 

54 


DIFFICULTIES   OF  LANGUAGE  55 

relations  of  the  foreign  language  to  the  learner's  native  language, 
especially  as  regards  similarity  in  vocabulary  and  structure. 

We  are  naturally  inclined  to  assume  that  the  nearer  the 
foreign  language  is  to  our  own,  the  easier  it  is.  A  Spaniard 
soon  learns  to  understand  Portuguese,  and  a  Portuguese  soon 
learns  Spanish  enough  to  understand  it,  a  Dane  soon  learns 
to  understand  Swedish,  and  an  Englishman  soon  learns  to 
understand  broad  Scotch,  because  in  all  these  pairs  the  two 
languages  are  practically  only  dialects  of  one  another — in  other 
words,  because  knowing  Spanish  or  Danish  or  English  implies 
knowing  two-thirds  of  Portuguese,  Danish,  or  Scotch  respec- 
tively. Hence  also  we  are  often  told  that  '  Italian  is  very  easy 
if  you  know  Latin  and  French.'  Hence  also  Old  English 
(Anglo-Saxon)  is  easier  to  a  German  than  to  an  Englishman,  so 
that,  as  I  have  remarked  in  the  preface  to  my  Anglo-Saxon 
Reader,  '  he  (the  German)  is  able  to  acquire  a  practical  know- 
ledge of  it  from  a  crabbedly  theoretical  exposition  of  it  that 
would  baffle  an  English  learner.' 

But  this  very  likeness  is  often  a  source  of  confusion.  It  is  a 
help  to  the  beginner  who  merely  wants  to  understand  the  allied 
language,  and  is  contented  with  a  rough  knowledge  ;  but  it  is  a 
hindrance  to  any  thorough  knowledge,  because  of  the  constant 
cross-associations  that  are  sure  to  present  themselves.  Thus 
in  German  werden  is  present  and  infinitive,  wo?'den  is  past 
participle ;  but  in  Dutch  worden  is  equivalent  to  the  German 
werden,  while  the  Dutch  werd  is  the  preterite,  being  equivalent 
to  German  ward.  And  yet  the  general  resemblance  between 
German  and  Dutch  is  much  less  than  that  between  such  a 
group  of  languages  as  Danish,  Norwegian,  and  Swedish.  The 
resemblance  between  these  three  is,  indeed,  so  strong  that  it  is 
practically  impossible  to  keep  them  apart :  a  foreigner  who  has 
learnt  to  speak  Danish  fluently,  and  then  goes  on  to  learn 
Swedish,  will  soon  lose  the  power  of  speaking  the  former 
language,  and  will  not  regain  it  till  he  has  forgotten  his 
Swedish.  A  further  study  of  Norwegian,  which  is  intermediate 
between  Danish  and  Swedish,  will  cause  still  greater  confusion. 

Differences  in  the  vocabulary  are  an  even  greater  snare  than 
differences  of  grammatical  structure,  because  they  cannot  be 
brought  under  definite  rules.  Thus  it  is  very  difficult  for  an 
English  speaker  to  realize  that  when  a  Frenchman  '  demands 
permission,'  he  does  not  mean  to  imply  the  slightest  impera- 
tiveness.    It  is  dangerous  to  guess  at  the  meanings  of  words  in 


56    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

closely  allied  languages,  or  in  languages  between  which  there  is 
any  borrowing  of  words ;  thus  in  German  gottesdienst  means 
'  divine  service,'  but  in  Dutch  godsdienst  has  the  wider  meaning 
'  religion.'  So  also  in  Swedish  rolig  means  '  pleasant,  amusing,' 
while  in  Danish  and  Norwegian  it  has  only  the  older  meaning 
1  quiet,  tranquil,'  in  accordance  with  its  derivation  from  ro, '  rest,' 
cognate  with  the  German  ruhe.  Hence  a  Dane  would  be 
puzzled  if  a  Swede  told  him  that  he  had  found  the  Carnival  or 
the  Lord  Mayor's  Show  '  rolig.' 

In  learning  a  remote,  unconnected  language  the  difficulties 
are  reversed.  The  beginning  is  much  more  difficult,  and,  of 
course,  it  takes  a  much  longer  time  to  understand  the  language. 
But  when  the  initial  difficulties  have  been  once  overcome,  it  is 
easier  to  get  a  minutely  accurate  knowledge  of  the  language, 
because  the  learner  is  less  disturbed  by  cross-associations. 

Internal  Difficulties 

We  will  now  consider  those  difficulties  which  are,  in  the 
strict  sense  of  the  word,  internal — inherent  in  each  language 
apart  from  external  circumstances  and  from  its  varying  relations 
to  other  languages. 

The  difficulties  of  language  in  general  may  be  classed  under 
the  four  heads  of  (i)  logic  or  reasonableness,  (2)  definiteness, 
(3)  fullness  of  expression,  and  (4)  simplicity. 

(1)  As  regards  logic,  most  untrained  minds  regard  every- 
thing in  a  foreign  language  that  differs  from  their  own  as  essen- 
tially irrational.  But  apart  from  such  prejudices,  there  are 
some  grammatical  constructions,  some  methods  of  expression 
in  special  languages,  which  all  foreigners — as  well  as  unpreju- 
diced natives  of  a  philosophic  mind — would  agree  in  consider- 
ing irrational.  Such  a  construction  is  that  by  which  in  classical 
Arabic  the  numerals  from  three  to  ten  are  put  in  the  feminine 
before  masculine  nouns,  and  in  the  masculine  before  feminine 
nouns,  as  in  \ala\atu  ba?iina,  '  three  sons,'  arba'u  bandtin,  '  four 
daughters.'     The  contradiction  here  is  purely  formal. 

We  have  an  example  of  an  equally  striking  logical  contradic- 
tion in  the  French  plus  de  soupe  !  '  no  more  soup  ! '  an  expres- 
sion which  every  Englishman  would  naturally  and  instinctively 
use  instead  of  the  correct  encore  de  la  soupe !  Such  construc- 
tions are  absolute  paradoxes.     As  an  example  of  an  ordinary 


DIFFICULTIES   OF  LANGUAGE  57 

irrational  construction  we  may  quote  the  English  use  of  up  in 
pack  up,  lock  up,  wrap  up,  which  is  opposed  both  to  common 
sense  and  to  the  usage  of  most  other  languages,  in  which  the 
literal  translation  of  '  pack  up '  would  mean  the  exact  oppo- 
site^— '  unpack.' 

Of  antigrammatical  constructions — those  constructions  which 
cannot  be  parsed  in  accordance  with  the  general  grammatical 
rules  of  the  language  in  question — some  are  logical  and  rational 
in  themselves,  such  as  the  construction  of  a  singular  collective 
noun  with  a  plural  verb  or  a  word  implying  plurality  {the  com- 
mittee are  of  opinion  that  .  .  .  many  cattle),  while  others 
are  irrational,  such  as  that  almost  incredible  German  con- 
struction in  ich  hade  kommen  miissen,  '  I  have  had  to  come,' 
where  the  infinitive  miissen  is  used  as  if  it  were  a  preterite 
participle. 

Over-abstraction  sometimes  leads  to  difficulties  which  defy 
direct  logical  analysis,  such  as  the  curious  use  of  the  verb  '  to 
be '  in  the  passive,  which  is  common  in  the  Celtic  languages, 
as  in  the  Old  Irish  cein  both  oc  aurgnom  doib,  '  while  they  were 
being  served  (waited  upon),'  literally  '  while  it-was-being-been 
with-serving  to-them,'  as  if  we  were  to  say  in  Latin  dum  eratur 
ministrando  eis. 

The  use  of  the  preterite  in  English  and  other  Arian  languages 
to  imply  rejected  condition  in  such  sentences  as  if  I  knew, 
implying  '  I  do  not  know,'  is  not  wholly  irrational,  but  certainly 
shows  a  certain  intellectual  clumsiness,  as  compared  with  the 
sensible  Arabic  use  of  two  words  for  '  if,'  one  of  which  (lau) 
always  implies  rejection  of  the  condition,  so  that  there  is  no 
occasion  to  throw  the  distinction  on  the  verb. 

Some  difficulties  are  what  may  be  called  '  negatively  illogical.' 
Thus  to  a  foreigner  the  distinctions  of  gender  in  German  and 
Old  English  by  which  hands  are  feminine  and  fingers  mascu- 
line, while  feet  are  masculine  and  toes  feminine,  appears  to 
'  have  no  sense  in  it.'  I  remember  a  young  Welshman  correct- 
ing me,  when  I  called  the  pair  of  bellows  y  megin  instead  of 
y  fegin,  by  saying,  '  We  call  a  pair  of  bellows  a  she,  sir ; '  he  was 
then  evidently  struck  by  the  absurdity  of  it,  for  he  added  after 
a  pause  of  reflection,  '  I  don't  know  why  we  do  so.'  The  diffi- 
culties connected  with  grammatical  gender  are  purely  mechanical 
difficulties,  which  cannot  be  overcome  or  evaded  by  any  exertion 
of  the  reasoning  faculties. 

Another — and  perhaps  the  greatest — source  of  difficulty  is 


58     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

that  the  same  fact  may  be  regarded  from  a  variety  of  different 
points  of  view,  all  of  which  are  perhaps  equally  logical  and 
reasonable.  Thus  in  such  a  sentence  as  '  she  held  her  hands 
before  her  face,'  we  should  expect  those  languages  which  use 
the  accusative  case  to  express  motion  and  the  dative  to  imply 
rest  to  put  face  in  the  dative,  as  the  hands  are  supposed  to  be 
at  rest ;  but  in  German  the  accusative  would  be  used  in  such  a 
construction,  showing  that  the  speakers  who  first  framed  this 
construction  were  thinking  of  the  movement  which  brought  the 
hands  before  the  face  rather  than  of  the  resulting  position  of 
rest.  This  difference  of  point  of  view  is  one  of  the  chief 
sources  of  difficulty  in  idioms.  Thus  in  French  the  idea  of 
'  back  numbers '  of  a  periodical  is  expressed  by  (kohksjo  dy 
■zurnal),  where  the  element  of '  backness '  is  entirely  ignored, 
the  whole  idea  being  approached  from  a  totally  different  point 
of  view.  Sometimes  the  difference  of  point  of  view  is  the 
result  of  different  circumstances  or  way  of  life,  as  when  a 
German  translates  '  he  followed  me  all  over  the  house '  by  '  he 
ran  after  me  through  all  the  rooms,'  because  Germans  generally 
live  in  flats,  and  seldom  occupy  a  whole  house. 

(2)  As  regards  definiteness,  one  language  may  make  more 
minute  distinctions  than  another.  Hence  to  an  ordinary 
Englishman  who  contents  himself  with  roughly  designating 
objects  in  space  as  'this'  or  'that,'  or  as  being  'here'  or 
'  there,'  the  threefold  distinction  involved  in  the  Scotch  this, 
that,  yon,  or  here,  there,  yonder,  the  Latin  hie,  iste,  ille,  or  the 
Welsh  yma,  yna,  aew,  occasions  great  difficulties — especially 
some  of  the  special  idiomatic  uses  of  the  Welsh  aew — although 
he  cannot  help  admitting  that  the  threefold  division  is  in  some 
respects  logically  superior  to  his  one  twofold  one. 

Want  of  definiteness,  on  the  other  hand,  may  cause  just  as 
much  difficulty.  How  often  in  speaking  a  foreign  language  do 
we  hesitate,  vainly  trying  to  find  a  word  or  phrase  which 
corresponds  definitely  and  exactly  to  the  idea  in  our  mind,  till 
at  last  we  have  to  fall  back  on  a  periphrase  !  Those  who  have 
lived  long  abroad  sometimes  hesitate  even  in  speaking  their 
own  language,  because  they  feel  tempted  to  use  some  foreign 
word,  such  as  the  German  gemiithlich  or  the  French  flcLner. 
Nouns,  such  as  the  German  philisier  and  the  French  fl&neur, 
are,  indeed,  so  easily  incorporated  into  the  native  speech  that 
they  soon  become  actual  denizens,  unless  some  translation  or 


DIFFICULTIES   OF   LANGUAGE  59 

adaptation  takes  their  place,  as  when  philister  is  adopted  in  the 
form  of  Philistine. 

This  want  of  definiteness  may  sometimes  amount  to  positive 
ambiguity,  as  in  the  English  use  of  will  and  shall  to  express 
wish  and  compulsion  on  the  one  hand  and  futurity  on  the 
other,  an  ambiguity  which  is  completely  avoided  in  German  by 
the  use  of  werden  to  express  pure  futurity  only.  This  makes 
an  Englishman  hesitate  sometimes  to  use  wollen  or  sollen  in 
German  where  he  ought  to  do  so ;  he  does  not  feel  the  slight 
shade  of  wish  or  compulsion  implied  by  the  substitution  of 
these  auxiliaries  for  werden,  and  is  therefore  afraid  of  introducing 
an  anglicism. 

A  frequent  source  of  indefiniteness  and  ambiguity  is  reliance 
on  the  context.  In  all  languages  a  word  may  have  a  great 
variety  of  meanings  distinguishable  solely  by  the  context,  as 
when  in  English  we  apply  the  adjective  sharp  to  knives,  dis- 
tinctions, answers,  and  tempers.  But  the  function  of  gram- 
matical forms  is  also  largely  dependent  on  the  context,  as  we 
see  in  the  English  inflectional  -s  in  sheep's,  trees,  he  knows.  In 
Chinese  this  reliance  on  the  context  is  carried  to  extreme 
lengths :  thus  sam  yuet,  literally  '  three  month,'  may  mean 
either  '  three  months '  or '  the  third  month,'  and  laii  lau,  literally 
'  old  old,'  means  '  to  treat  old  people  as  they  ought  to  be 
treated  (that  is,  with  respect),'  the  first  lau  being  converted  into 
a  transitive  verb  '  to  old.' 

(3)  Fullness  of  expression  may  go  to  the  extremes  of  redun- 
dance on  the  one  hand,  as  in  the  reason  why,  my  future  address 
will  be  ...  ,  and  ellipse  on  the  other,  as  in  at  his  brother's  (house). 

It  is  not  these  clearly  marked  cases,  but  the  less  defined  ones, 
which  cause  real  difficulty.  Thus  many  of  the  Greek  particles 
seem  redundant  and  superfluous  when  compared  with  those  of 
most  other  languages.  So  also  do  many  of  those  used  in 
classical  Chinese,  especially  the  finals,  which  practically  in  many 
cases  seem  to  a  foreigner  to  be  little  more  than  marks  of 
punctuation,  serving  to  show  that  the  sentence  is  completed. 

But  Old  Chinese  in  most  cases  is  almost  incredibly  concise 
and  elliptical.  Thus  it  has  no  word  for  the  pronoun  of  the 
third  person  in  the  nominative — that  is,  it  has  no  word  for  he, 
she,  it,  they,  the  absence  of  a  pronoun  being  supposed  to  imply 
the  third  person;  but  not  content  with  this,  they  omit  the 
pronoun    freely   in   the  other   persons   as   well,  whenever  the 


60    THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

context  seems  to  allow  it,  so  that,  for  instance,  yuet  may  mean 
not  only  '  he  says,  she  said,  they  will  say,  one  may  say,'  and  so 
on,  but  also  '  I  say,  we  have  said,'  etc. 

(4)  Simplicity  of  expression  implies  in  the  first  place  regu- 
larity. As  every  one  knows,  irregular  inflections  are  one  of  the 
most  formidable  difficulties  in  the  study  of  inflectional  languages. 

Simplicity  also  leads  to  generalization  and  abstraction,  which, 
when  unfamiliar,  may  require  an  effort  to  grasp,  as  in  the  many 
idiomatic  uses  of  the  Chinese  indefinite  pronoun  ck,  which  has 
the  function  of  making  the  preceding  word  or  word-group  into 
a  noun  of  general  meaning,  so  that,  for  instance,  govern  ce 
means  '  the  abstract  conception  of  government,'  able  mend  fault 
ce  means  '  one  who  is  able  to  reform  his  faults,'  grass  firewood 
ce  means  '  cutters  of  grass  and  gatherers  of  firewood.' 

The  opposite  extreme  of  want  of  abstraction  which  leads  to 
over  specialization  is  a  more  frequent  source  of  difficulty.  It  is 
most  clearly  seen  in  those  savage  languages,  which  often  have 
no  word  even  for  so  concrete  an  idea  as  that  of  '  washing,'  but 
only  separate  words  for  '  wash  the  hands,'  '  wash  the  feet,'  '  wash 
dishes,'  and  so  on.  In  the  language  of  Tierra  del  Fuego  no 
verb  implying  place  can  stand  alone — the  point  of  the  compass 
must  be  indicated :  they  cannot  say  '  he  stood '  by  itself,  but 
only  '  he  stood  in  the  north,  in  the  south  .  .  .  ,'  these  local  deter- 
minations being  used  also  in  a  variety  of  metaphorical  uses,  '  in 
the  north,'  for  instance,  implying  '  away  from  the  fire.' 

But  want  of  abstraction  is  by  no  means  confined  to  savage 
languages.  Even  in  English  we  have  no  word  to  express  the 
'  running '  of  a  horse  :  we  must  define  the  pace  as  trotting, 
galloping,  etc.  German  has  no  general  word  for  '  handle.'  In 
Swedish  there  is  no  general  word  for  '  aunt '  or  '  uncle,'  these 
ideas  being  expressed  by  contractions  such  as  father-sister, 
mother-sister  {faster,  moster),  so  that  it  is  always  necessary  to 
state  expressly  whether  the  maternal  or  paternal  aunt  or  uncle 
is  meant,  just  as  in  the  older  languages. 

One  of  the  greatest  sources  of  difficulty  is  that  caused  by 
superfluous  distinctions — that  is  to  say,  distinctions  which  are 
invariably  and  unmistakably  shown  by  the  context,  such  as  the 
Swedish  and  Norwegian  distinction  between  ja  and  jo  in  the 
sense  of  '  yes,'  the  former  being  used  after  a  positive,  the  latter 
after  a  negative  question.  Equally  superfluous  is  the  German 
distinction  between  herauf  and hinaufi '  up  towards  the  speaker,' 


DIFFICULTIES   OF    LANGUAGE  61 

'  up  away  from  the  speaker.'  In  such  cases  the  fact  that  the 
distinction  is  always  implied  unambiguously  by  the  context 
makes  the  foreigner  inclined  to  ignore  it;  unless,  indeed,  he 
carries  it  too  far,  saying,  for  instance,  gerade  hinaus  instead  of 
gerade  aus  in  the  sense  of  '  straight  on.'  The  use  of  the  sub- 
junctive mood  in  indirect  narration  is  almost  equally  superfluous ; 
it  is  instructive  to  observe  that  modern  French,  which  is  other- 
wise strict  enough  in  its  use  of  the  subjunctive,  has  in  this  case 
substituted  the  indicative,  a  change  which  also  took  place  very 
early  in  the  transition  from  Old  to  Middle  English. 

Some  minute  distinctions  may  be  justified  logically  on  the 
ground  that  they  do  sometimes  express  shades  of  meaning 
which  are  more  or  less  independent  of  the  context,  and  may 
yet  be,  on  the  whole,  practically  superfluous.  This  is  the  case 
with  the  difficult  Welsh  distinction  of  four  verbs  '  to  be ' — sydd, 
mae,  yw,  oes — whose  use  depends  on  subtle  distinctions  of 
definiteness  and  indefiniteness,  emphasizing  the  predicate  and 
so  on.  As  these  verbs  are  incessantly  employed  in  the  numerous 
substitutes  for  '  yes '  and  '  no,'  it  is  impossible  in  Welsh  to 
express  simple  affirmation  or  negation  without  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  syntax. 

Another  equally  fruitful  source  of  difficulty  is  unnecessary 
complexity.  This  is  frequent  in  numerical  expressions,  such  as 
threescore  and  ten  for  seventy,  French  quatre-vingt-onze,  'four- 
twenty-eleven  '  =  '  ninety-one,'  Danish  halvtredsindsfyve,  '  half 
three  times  twenty,'  that  is  '  threescore  minus  half  a  score  '  =  50, 
with  which  compare  German  halb  zwei,  '  half  two '  =  '  one  and 
a  half.'  Very  curious  also  are  Finnish  numerals,  such  as 
kaksikymmentd,  'two  tens' =  20,  yksikolmatta,  'one  of  (the) 
third  (set  of  tens) '  =  21.  Even  the  English  numerals  are 
complex  as  compared  with  the  Chinese  ones,  such  as  \ip  n, '  ten 
two'  =12,  r\ti  jip  yit,  'five  ten  one  '  =  51.  The  difficulty  of 
the  English  vocabulary  is  the  result  of  the  complexity  of  its 
root-system,  as  shown  in  such  groups  as  sun,  sol-ar,  helio-cent?ical, 
and  sour,  acid,  oxy-gen.  In  German  or  Greek  two  roots  would 
suffice  for  these  six  words. 

Phonetic  Difficulties 

As  regards  phonetic  difficulties — difficulties  of  pronunciation 
— there  are  three  main  considerations.  The  first  is,  that  the 
difficulty  of  a  sound  depends  more  than  anything  on  whether  it 


62     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

is  familiar  or  unfamiliar,  which  is  not  an  intrinsic,  but  a  relative 
or,  we  may  almost  say,  an  external  difficulty.  To  the  unphonetic 
learner  all  unfamiliar  sounds  are  difficult,  or  even  impossible — at 
least,  he  thinks  so.  This  applies  also  to  unfamiliar  combina- 
tions of  familiar  sounds.  Thus  even  initial  (ts)  may  be  difficult 
to  English  speakers,  as  well  as  such  combinations  as  (ft J)  in 
Russian,  because,  although  (ts)  is  a  familiar  combination,  it  is 
unfamiliar  when  initial. 

Hence  a  language  may  have  a  very  simple  and  normal  sound- 
system,  and  yet  be  difficult  to  pronounce,  as  we  see  in  the  case 
of  Finnish,  where  it  is  necessary  to  make  a  strict  distinction 
between  long  and  short  vowels,  double  (or  long)  and  single 
consonants  in  unstressed  as  well  as  stressed  syllables,  the 
stressed  syllable — which  is  always  the  first  in  the  word — having 
a  very  strong  stress,  the  others  a  very  weak  one,  besides  being 
uttered  with  great  rapidity,  so  that  the  only  way  to  keep  up  the 
necessary  distinctions  of  quantity  is  by  making  the  short  sounds 
excessively  short ;  hence  such  a  word  as  opettamattomuudessansa, 
1  in  his  want  of  instruction  (in  his  ignorance),'  requires  much 
practice. 

As  the  number  of  distinctive  sounds  of  natural  occurrence 
is  rather  limited,  there  is  always  an  a  priori  probability  of  meet- 
ing at  least  some  familiar  sound  in  every  new  language.  Hence 
there  is,  on  the  whole,  a  tendency  to  a  balance  of  difficulties  in 
foreign  languages.  Thus  the  English  speaker  meets  his  soft 
and  hard  th  and  his  w  hardly  anywhere  till  he  comes  to  Arabic, 
where,  however,  the  first  two  are  lost  in  most  of  the  modern 
dialects.  The  Dane,  again,  finds  his  '  stodtone '  again  in  the 
Arabic  hamza,  and  something,  at  least,  of  the  sound  of  his  ;■  in 
the  Arabic  'en,  for  I  certainly  hear  the  same  kind  of  throat-con- 
traction in  both  sounds  (I  mean  the  Copenhagen  r),  although 
the  Danish  phoneticians  do  not  agree  with  me  in  this. 

The  second  consideration  is,  that  no  sound  that  actually 
exists  in  a  language  for  any  length  of  time  can  be  intrinsically 
difficult ;  for  sounds  are  so  easily  and  so  imperceptibly  modified 
in  their  transmission  from  generation  to  generation  that  their 
retention,  unchanged  for  only  a  few  generations,  is  enough  to 
prove  that  they  cannot  be  difficult  in  themselves.  Thus,  if  the 
two  Arabic  throat-sounds,  the  ha  and  the  '■en,  were  as  difficult  in 
themselves  as  most  foreigners  imagine  them  to  be,  they  would 
not  have  been  preserved,  as  they  have  been,  unchanged  in 
Arabic  for  at  least  ten  thousand  years.     Nor  do  Arab-speaking 


DIFFICULTIES   OF   LANGUAGE  63 

children  find  them  so  difficult  to  learn  as  some  of  the  other 
consonants,  such  as  the  deep  k. 

Lastly,  practical  training  in  general  phonetics  gets  rid  of 
many  difficulties  at  once,  and  tends  to  make  a  complete  mastery 
of  the  pronunciation  of  a  foreign  language  simply  a  matter  of 
practice  and  perseverance,  ample  time  for  which  is  afforded  by 
the  difficulties  of  mastering  the  grammar  and  vocabulary  of  the 
language.  As  our  knowledge  of  phonetics  and  our  methods  of 
teaching  it  are  gradually  perfected,  the  easier  it  will  be  to  clear 
away  the  remaining  difficulties,  especially  if  the  practical  study 
of  phonetics  is  begun  young  enough — that  is  to  say,  in  the 
nursery. 


General  Difficulty  of  each  Language 

In  estimating  the  general  difficulty  of  one  language  as  com- 
pared with  others,  it  is  necessary  once  more  to  insist  on  the 
elimination  of  all  external  and  irrelevant  considerations,  such  as 
those  caused  by  a  defective  or  complicated  system  of  writing, 
by  want  of  grammars  and  dictionaries,  by  want  of  suitable 
texts.  Latin  is  difficult  partly  because  most  of  its  literature  is 
rhetorical  and  artificial — hardly  ever  naive  and  simple.  Brown- 
ing and  Hegel  are  difficult  and  obscure  writers,  but  that  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  question  whether  English  and  German 
are  in  themselves  difficult.  Old  Slavonic,  on  the  contrary,  is 
comparatively  easy  partly  because  most  of  its  literature  consists 
of  translations  of  ecclesiastical  writings.  Gothic  is  easy  because 
the  whole  language — texts,  grammar,  glossary,  and  all — can  be 
comprised  in  one  volume,  and  this  in  addition  to  the  texts 
being  mostly  Biblical  translations. 

Most  people,  if  asked  what  constitutes  the  real  difficulty  of 
such  a  language  as  Greek  or  Sanskrit,  would  answer  without 
hesitation,  '  the  complexity  of  its  inflections.'  Most  school- 
boys have  wondered  how  the  Greeks  ever  could  have  learned 
to  conjugate  the  verbs  in  -mi.  These  people  assume  that  all 
inflectional  languages  are  necessarily  difficult,  and  that  the  only 
real  progress  in  language  as  regards  ease  of  learning  is  getting 
rid  of  inflections.  They  are  inclined  to  assume  that  a  language 
such  as  Sanskrit  or  Russian,  with  its  eight  cases,  must  be  more 
difficult  than  one  which  has  only  four,  such  as  German,  and 
that  Finnish,  with  its  fifteen  cases,  must  be  nearly  twice  as 


64    THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

difficult  as  Sanskrit — at  least,  from  the  point  of  view  of  noun- 
inflection. 

But  when  we  look  a  little  closer  into  the  question,  we  see 
that  there  are  generally  compensations  for  an  increased  number 
of  inflections.  We  find  that,  as  a  general  rule,  the  greater  the 
number  of  cases,  the  more  regular  they  are,  and,  what  is  equally 
important,  the  more  distinctive  in  form,  and  therefore  the 
easier  to  remember.  Thus  in  Finnish  all  ablatives  end  in  -Ita — 
which  under  certain  definite  and  simple  phonetic  conditions  is 
regularly  modified  to  -ltd — all  ( translatives '  end  in  -ksi  without 
any  distinctions  of  gender,  the  endings  being  the  same  in  the 
plural  as  in  the  singular ;  the  only  difficulty  in  Finnish  are  the 
changes  undergone  by  the  stem,  which,  though  often  consider- 
able, are  not  so  difficult  as  in  more  advanced  inflectional 
languages.  In  Sanskrit  there  is  much  more  irregularity  than  in 
Finnish,  but  many  of  the  endings — such  as  -bhyas — are  so  full- 
sounding  and  heavy  that  they  are  as  easy  to  remember  as  if 
they  were  independent  words.  German,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  only  four  cases,  which  are  expressed  by  a  very  limited 
number  of  endings  :  -e,  -en,  -em,  -es,  -er.  But  this  formal  sim- 
plicity is  in  itself  a  source  of  difficulty,  for  most  of  these  endings 
have  such  a  multiplicity  of  grammatical  functions  that  they  lose 
all  individuality  and  become  mere  abstractions,  which  are  abso- 
lutely meaningless  apart  from  their  context.  It  is  a  question 
whether  the  modern  German  inflections  are  not  as  difficult  as 
the  Finnish.  The  German  dialects  seem  to  think  the  noun- 
inflections  difficult,  for  most  of  them  get  rid  of  them  more  or 
less  completely. 

Again,  the  Finnish  inflections  enable  the  language  to  dis- 
pense with  prepositions  to  a  great  extent.  Thus  '  without 
money '  is  expressed  by  putting  money  in  the  '  caritative '  case, 
or,  in  other  words,  making  without  money  into  mone\-without, 
so  that  having  fifteen  cases,  which  sounds  so  formidable  at  first, 
means,  from  this  point  of  view,  having  only  fifteen  prepositions 
in  common  use.  The  result  often  is  that  a  grammatical  cate- 
gory which  in  English  can  be  expressed  only  by  a  variety  of 
prepositions  of  complicated  meanings  and  functions  is  in 
Finnish  expressed  by  a  single  case  which  is  often  as  distinct 
and  tangible  as  an  independent  word. 

We  thus  arrive  at  the  conclusion  not  only  that  a  larger 
number  of  inflections  does  not  necessarily  increase  the  difficulty 
of  a  language,  but  also  that  inflections  may  in  some  respects  be 


DIFFICULTIES   OF   LANGUAGE  65 

easier  to  learn  than  the  prepositions,  particles,  and  auxiliaries 
which  take  their  place  in  '  analytical '  languages  such  as  English 
and  French.  No  inflections  can  possibly  be  more  difficult  than 
the  English  distinction  between  will  and  shall  in  the  future,  or 
the  French  uses  of  the  prepositions  a  and  de. 

Then,  again,  inflections  are  not  the  only  formal  irregularities 
in  language.  The  student  of  spoken  English  has  not  only  to 
learn  the  syntactical  use  of  will  and  shall,  but  has  also  to  learn 
to  recognize  these  words  in  their  various  formal  disguises  in' 
such  combinations  as  (ail,  ai  wount,  ai  Jaant),  and  so  on.  So 
also  French,  after  substituting  de  for  the  various  inflections  of 
the  Latin  genitive,  goes  on  to  develope  fresh  irregularities,  such 
as  du,  des. 

The  epithet  '  analytic,'  too,  is  often  applied  too  sweepingly. 
If  we  compare  Italian  with  Latin,  we  see  that  the  loss  of  the 
cases  is  to  a  great  extent  compensated,  as  regards  irregularity 
and  complexity  of  form,  by  the  difficulty  of  the  verbs,  and  by 
the  various  forms  of  the  pronouns  and  the  other  new  develop- 
ments. It  is  clear,  therefore,  either  that  the  intrinsic  ease  of 
Italian  as  compared  with  Latin  has  been  exaggerated,  or  that 
it  is  the  result  of  other  changes  than  mere  loss  of  inflection. 

If,  indeed,  we  put  ourselves  in  imagination  in  the  place  of 
an  intelligent  Asiatic  who  knows  nothing  of  any  European 
language,  we  shall  have  reason  to  doubt  whether  Italian  is, 
after  all,  easier  than  Latin.  The  comparative  ease  of  Italian 
to  Europeans  is  mainly  the  result  of  purely  external  conditions, 
the  most  important  of  which  is  that  most  of  those  who  learn 
it,  really  know  it  partially  beforehand  through  knowing  French 
and  Latin — languages  which  no  European  can  help  learning  to 
some  extent  through  the  French  and  Latin  words  imported  into 
his  own  vocabulary. 

If  inflections  and  grammatical  irregularities  were  the  main 
cause  of  difficulty,  then  Chinese  ought  to  be  the  easiest  language 
in  the  world,  for  it  has  no  inflections,  no  grammatical  genders, 
no  irregularities  of  form,  and  its  particles  and  auxiliaries  are 
few  in  number  :  Chinese  grammar  is  all  phonology  and  syntax 
— there  is  no  accidence  whatever.  And  yet  the  construction 
of  classical  Chinese  is  as  difficult  as  that  of  Latin,  quite  apart 
from  any  external  difficulties. 


66     THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

The  Real  Difficulty  is  in  the  Vocabulary 

The  fact  that  the  languages  commonly  learnt  by  Europeans 
belong  mostly  to  the  same  Aryan  stock,  and  have  besides  a 
large  vocabulary  in  common  of  borrowed  Latin,  French,  and 
Greek  words,  is  apt  to  blind  them  to  a  recognition  of  the  fact 

Ithat  the  real  intrinsic  difficulty  of  learning  a  foreign  language 
lies  in  that  of  having  to  master  its  vocabulary. 
Mastering  the  vocabulary  of  most  European  languages  means 
simply  learning  to  recognize  a  number  of  old  friends  under 
slight  disguises,  and  making  a  certain  effort  to  learn  a  residue 
of  irrecognizable  words,  which,  however,  offer  less  difficulty 
than  they  otherwise  would  through  being  imbedded  in  a  con- 
text of  familiar  words.  The  higher  vocabulary  of  science,  art, 
and  abstract  thought  hardly  requires  to  be  learnt  at  all ;  for  it 
consists  either  of  Latin  and  Greek  terms  common  to  most 
European  languages,  or  of  translations  of  them. 

It  is  very  different  with  a  remote  disconnected  language  such 
as  Arabic  or  Chinese.  The  abstract  vocabulary  of  Arabic 
shows  Greek  influence,  although  this  affords  very  little  practical 
help ;  but  the  terminology  of  Chinese  philosophy  and  science 
is  independent  of  Western  influence,  so  that  every  extension  of 
the  vocabulary  requires  a  special  effort  of  memory  and  reason- 
ing. The  task  of  mastering  such  languages  is  literally  an 
endless  one.  Enough  Arabic  grammar  for  reading  purposes  is 
soon  acquired,  the  construction  being  always  perfectly  simple — 
at  least  in  ordinary  prose,  but  the  student  may  read  one  class 
of  texts  for  years,  and  then,  when  he  proceeds  to  another  branch 
of  the  literature,  he  may  find  that  he  can  hardly  understand  a 
word,  this  being  almost  entirely  the  result  of  the  unfamiliarity 
of  the  new  vocabulary  required. 

In  short,  we  can  master  enough  of  the  grammar  of  any 
language  for  reading  purposes  within  a  definite  period — gene- 
rally less  than  six  months — but  we  cannot  do  the  same  with 
the  vocabulary  unless  it  is  already  partially  familiar  to  us  in  the 
way  that  the  vocabulary  of  Italian  is  to  all  English  speakers. 

All   Languages  Equally   Difficult 

All  these  considerations,  if  summed  up  impartially,  lead  us 
finally  to  the  conclusion  that,  as  regards  ease  of  learning,  all 
languages  are  intrinsically  on  a  level — they  are  all  equally  easy 


DIFFICULTIES   OF   LANGUAGE  67 

or  equally  difficult ;  that  is,  of  course,  if  we  rigorously  eliminate 
all  external  considerations,  and  disregard  the  special  relations 
between  individual  languages. 

But  as  it  is  practically  impossible  for  any  one  who  has  not 
an  equally  perfect  knowledge  of  all  languages  to  test  this  by 
experience,  it  must  remain  an  abstraction,  like  the  dogma  of 
the  absolute  regularity  of  sound-changes.  We  may  also  say  of 
the  dogma  of  the  intrinsically  equal  difficulty  of  languages,  as 
of  that  of  the  absolute  regularity  of  sound-changes,  that  even  if 
it  is  not  true,  it  has  a  certain  value  as  a  corrective  to  one- 
sidedness  and  inaccurate  reasoning. 

The  external  considerations  have  been  already  discussed. 
One  reservation  only  remains  to  be  stated.  When  we  talk  of 
the  difficulty  of  a  language,  we  must  strictly  define  the  limits  of 
the  language ;  we  must  be  careful  in  speaking  of  a  language  to 
make  sure  that  we  are  not  really  speaking  of  a  group  of 
languages,  or — what  is  the  same  thing  from  our  present  point 
of  view — a  group  of  dialects.  Thus  an  ordinary  Greek  grammar 
would  give  us  a  very  exaggerated  estimate  of  the  difficulty  of 
the  verbs  in  -mi  if  we  reckoned  up  all  the  divergent  forms 
without  regard  to  difference  of  dialect.  It  must  also  be 
remembered  that  the  Homeric  dialect  is  a  confused  mixture 
of  forms  of  different  periods  and  dialects  with  artificial  mon- 
strosities invented  by  grammarians  :  it  never  could  have  been 
an  actual  language.  So  also  Italian  is  not  so  difficult  as  its 
conventional  grammars  are. 

The  conclusion  to  which  we  have  just  arrived  is  strengthened 
by  some  a  priori  considerations.  The  history  of  grammatical 
irregularities  is  very  instructive  from  this  point  of  view. 

The  tendency  of  unrestrained  phonetic  change  is  to  cause 
increasing  complexity  and  irregularity  in  language.  The  origin 
of  inflections  is  to  be  sought  mainly  in  phonetic  changes  which 
caused  originally  independent  post-positions  to  become  incor- 
porated into  the  preceding  word,  as  we  see  in  the  Icelandic 
reflexive  inflection  -sk,  which  is  simply  a  shortening  of  the 
reflexive  pronoun  sik,  as  in  buask,  '  prepare  oneself,'  whence 
our  verb  busk.  The  phonetic  changes  which  brought  inflections 
into  being  tend  to  complicate  more  and  more  both  the  inflections 
themselves  and  the  inflected  words.  We  see  the  result  in  such 
English  forms  as  (vvuman),  plural  (wimin),  where  there  are  only 
traces  left  of  the  original  Old  English  forms  wlfmami,  plural 


68     THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

wlfmenn,  the  second  element  of  (wimin)  being  also  completely 
isolated  from  modern  English  (maen)  or  its  plural  (men).  So 
also  in  Old  Irish  ben,  '  woman,'  plural  mna,  where  the  change 
of  b  into  m  is  purely  phonetic.  So,  again,  in  Welsh  the  word 
potatoes  was  borrowed  in  the  form  of  tatws,  which  was  regarded 
as  a  collective  plural,  from  which  on  the  analogy  of  native 
words  a  new  singular  was  formed  by  vowel-change  and  the 
addition  of  -en,  the  whole  word  being  afterwards  shortened  to 
tysen,  the  singular  being  thus  completely  isolated  from  the 
plural,  as  if  they  were  unconnected  words. 

In  languages  as  they  exist,  such  difficulties  are  allowed  to 
accumulate  up  to  a  certain  point.  When  they  threaten  to 
undermine  the  whole  structure  of  the  language — as  they  certainly 
would  do  in  any  language  if  left  to  themselves — they  are  got 
rid  of  by  means  of  the  process  of  levelling  by  analogy.  Thus, 
in  some  dialects  of  Welsh  the  divergence  in  the  words  just 
mentioned  is  got  rid  of  by  forming  a  new  singular  taten  from 
the  plural,  so  that  the  comparatively  regular  inflection  taten, 
tatws  is  developed.  So  also  in  English  we  might  make  the 
inflection  of  woman  regular  by  giving  it  a  regular  plural  womans 
on  the  analogy  of  the  vast  majority  of  English  nouns.  We 
might  make  the  plural  of  man  itself  regular  in  the  same  way. 
But  as  these  two  words  are  of  extremely  frequent  occurrence, 
it  is  easy  for  us  to  remember  them,  especially  as  the  whole 
number  of  irregular  plurals  is  but  small. 

Different  languages  tolerate  different  irregularities.  Thus 
Welsh  is  very  irregular  in  the  formation  of  its  plurals,  but  it 
makes  up  for  this  by  getting  rid  of  all  its  case-inflections. 
Finnish,  as  we  have  seen,  has  many  cases,  but  they  are,  on  the 
whole,  very  regular.  If  a  language  is  very  regular  and  simple 
in  one  department,  we  may  expect  it  to  be  irregular  and 
complex  in  another.  In  this  way  there  is  a  balance  of  difficulties, 
although  this  is  often  ignored  through  taking  a  one-sided  view. 
Thus  in  English  the  formal  part  of  the  grammar  is  fairly  simple 
and  regular ;  but  the  vocabulary  shows  the  greatest  complexity 
and  irregularity,  which  in  the  spoken  language  extends  to  the 
form  as  well  as  the  meanings  of  the  words,  as  we  see  in  such  a 
group  of  words  as  (foutagrasf,  fout3-gra3fik,  fa'tografa),  where 
there  is  not  only  divergence  in  stress  but  also  in  sound,  so  that 
the  first  and  last  have  very  little  resemblance  to  the  ear. 

It  is  evident  that  every  language  in  its  colloquial  form  must 


DIFFICULTIES   OF   LANGUAGE  60 

be  adapted  to  the  average  capacity  of  its  speakers.  Although 
each  language  is  constructed  to  a  great  extent  by  the  philo- 
sophers and  poets  of  the  race,  it  cannot  in  the  form  of  it  which 
serves  for  ordinary  intercourse  go  beyond  the  capacity  of  the 
average  mind.  Learning  a  language,  therefore,  is  not  in  any 
way  analogous  to  learning  mathematics  or  metaphysics  :  it  does 
not  imply  any  attempt  to  enter  into  higher  regions  of  thought 
— to  commune  with  a  higher  mind.  On  the  contrary,  as  the 
greater  part  of  all  existing  languages  was  evolved  by  people  in 
a  rudimentary  state  of  civilization,  it  implies  the  very  reverse. 
Hence,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  it  is  often  a  positive  obstacle 
to  learning  a  language  to  be  rigorously  logical  and  minutely 
analytical. 

From  the  admission  that  all  languages  are  in  themselves 
equally  difficult,  it  does  not  necessarily  follow  that  we  are  never 
to  apply  the  word  'difficult'  to  languages.  But  it  must  be 
understood  that  when  we  say  that  one  Oriental  language  is 
more  difficult  than  another,  we  only  imply  that  the  external 
obstacles  are  greater,  or  that  the  structure  of  the  language 
differs  more  from  that  of  the  average  European  language. 


CHAPTER  IX 

GENERAL   PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD 

We  now  come  to  our  main  problem — how  to  overcome  these 
various  difficulties. 

Language  Only  Partly  Rational 

Before  going  any  further  it  is  important  to  realize  clearly  the 
fact  that  language  is  partly  rational,  partly  irrational  and  arbi- 
trary. Thus,  when  a  language  enlarges  its  vocabulary  by 
systematically  utilizing  material  words  to  express  abstract  ideas, 
as  when  it  uses  such  words  as  spring  or  source  to  express  the 
idea  of '  origin,'  it  is  rational ;  so  also  when  it  indicates  different 
grammatical  relations  between  words  by  the  order  in  which 
they  follow  each  other.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  language 
developes  such  a  system  of  grammatical  gender  as  we  find  in 
French  and  German,  or  when  it  allows  inflections  to  become 
irregular  and  ambiguous,  it  is  irrational.  It  is  true  that  we  can 
prove  by  historical  philology  that  there  was  once  a  reason  for 
grammatical  gender,  and  that  the  inflections  that  are  now 
irregular  and  anomalous  were  once  the  regular  ones,  or  that  at 
any  rate  they  are  the  result  of  regular  sound-changes ;  but  this 
does  not  in  any  way  alter  the  fact  that  they  are  now,  from  a 
practical  point  of  view,  irrational.  We  might  as  well  argue 
that  the  buttons  that  are  still  put  at  the  back  of  men's  dress 
coats  are  useful  because  our  dress  coats  were  originally  coats 
with  long  tails  which  were  buttoned  up  in  riding. 

The  arbitrariness  of  language  is  most  strikingly  evident  in  its 
vocabulary.  The  type  of  a  rational  word  is  such  a  one  as 
cuckoo,  which,  to  those  who  already  know  the  object  it  repre- 
sents, is  as  self-interpreting  and  as  easily  remembered  as  any 
gesture  or  picture.  But  in  all  languages  the  vast  majority  cf 
primitive  words  have  no  connection  with  the  meanings  they 

70 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD  71 

express,  and,  what  is  worse  still,  one  sound-group  often  stands 
for  a  variety  of  ideas,  which  are  sometimes  quite  disconnected, 
as  in  the  various  meanings  of  such  English  words  as  bear  and 
box.  Again,  in  a  rational  vocabulary  words  similar  in  form 
would  have  allied  meanings,  and  similar  meanings  would  be 
expressed  by  similar  words,  but  in  English  such  formally  almost 
identical  pairs  as  bit  and  beat,  bed  and  bad,  have  nothing  in 
common  as  regards  their  meanings,  and  even  such  ideas  as 
'good'  are  expressed  by  a  variety  of  distinct  words,  such  as 
good,  well,  virtue.  The  only  rational  part  of  the  vocabulary 
is  that  which  forms  new  words  by  composition  and  derivation, 
and  gives  words  new  meanings  by  means  of  metaphor,  simile, 
and  other  processes  of  the  same  kind ;  but  all  these  processes 
are  often  irregular  and  arbitrary  both  in  their  operation  and 
their  results. 

Irrational  Combinations  in  Language  :  We 
Cannot  Speak  by  Rule 

Language  is  often  irrational  even  in  the  way  it  combines 
words  into  sentences — in  its  synthesis.  If  language  were 
perfectly  rational  in  this  respect,  we  should  be  able  to  handle 
words  like  the  nine  digits  in  arithmetic,  and  combine  them  into 
sentences  at  pleasure  by  applying  a  few  simple  grammatical 
rules.  In  practice,  however,  we  find  that  a  great  part  of  all 
languages  consists  of  a  limited  number  of  natural  sentences, 
only  some  of  which  admit  of  being  formed  a  priori  and  freely 
modified  by  the  substitution  of  other  words,  as  when  from 
have,  ink,  pen  we  make  up  such  sentences  as  /  have  the  ink ; 
who  has  the  pen  ?  who  has  the  ink  ?  he  has  the  ink,  and  so  on. 

But  just  as  we  cannot  go  on  speaking  long  without  using 
irregular  inflections,  so  also  we  cannot  go  on  speaking  naturally 
for  any  length  of  time  without  using  irregular  combinations  of 
words — combinations  which  cannot  be  constructed  a  priori. 
The  sentences  which  make  up  natural  speech  are  of  two  kinds — 
general  sentences,  such  as  those  which  have  just  been  given, 
and  special  sentences  or  idioms,  such  as  how  do  yon  do  ?  never 
mind,  which  are  really  on  a  level  with  simple  words,  such  as 
salutation,  indifference,  and,  like  them,  have  to  be  learnt  one  by 
one,  in  the  same  way  as  the  iregularities  of  the  grammar. 
Many  of  them,  indeed,  have  meanings  inconsistent  with  those 
of  the  words  of  which  they  are  made  up.     Thus  do  by  itself 


72     THE    PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

never  has  the  meaning  it  has  in  how  do  you  do  ?  and  help  in 
the  idiomatic  expression  /  could  ?iot  help  being  late  has  the 
meaning  '  prevent,'  '  avoid,'  which  is  the  exact  contrary  of  its 
ordinary  meaning. 

Again,  even  in  those  cases  in  which  the  grammar  and 
dictionary  allow  us  to  express  an  idea  by  various  combinations 
of  words,  there  is  often  only  one  of  these  combinations  in  actual 
use.  Those  who  have  had  to  do  Latin  prose  composition 
know  that  the  main  difficulty  of  the  art  consists  in  having  an 
instinctive  knowledge  what  combinations  to  avoid.  French 
has  a  similar  character.  English  and  Greek  are  much  freer  in 
this  respect,  a  fact  which  many  foreigners  find  it  difficult  to 
realize.  When  they  ask  me  such  questions  as  '  can  one  speak 
of  an  "  elegant  supper "  ? '  '  can  you  say,  "  he  was  bad  last 
night "  ? '  I  always  answer  that  English  is  a  free  language, 
and  that  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  any  one  calling  a  supper 
1  elegant,'  although  I  do  not  remember  ever  doing  so  myself. 
Nevertheless,  English  has  its  limitations  as  well  as  other 
languages.  Foreigners'  English  often  presents  the  curious 
spectacle  of  a  language  constructed  on  strict  grammatical 
principles,  but  with  hardly  a  single  genuinely  English  sentence 
in  it.  The  following  extract  from  the  published  works  of  a 
distinguished  French  Orientalist  who  lived  many  years  in 
England,  and  wrote  most  of  his  books  in  English,  will  illustrate 
this.  The  writer  is  Prof.  Terrien  de  la  Couperie  (The  Pre- 
Chinese  Languages,  §  235),  and  he  is  protesting  against  the 
systematic  study  of  phonetics  : — 

'  Another  point  which  requires  due  consideration  is  that  of 
pronunciation.  The  scientific  achievements  lately  obtained 
in  perfection  of  transcription  by  several  English  and  German 
scholars  go  beyond  human  looseness.  They  have  reached  the 
high  level  of  the  respective  idiosyncrasies  of  the  speaker  and 
of  the  transcriber,  above  the  common  average  of  speech.  The 
activity  of  man's  speaking-organs  and  also  that  of  his  ear- 
sense,  have  nowhere  the  mechanical  and  permanent  precision 
which  their  principles  and  those  of  the  new  school  of  gram- 
marians imply.  Uncultured  populations  and  uneducated  men 
are  not  naturally  bent  in  the  material  of  their  speech  to  the 
yoke  of  steady  precision  which  is  only  the  result  of  a  training 
in  educated  social  surroundings  through  several  generations. 
Audition  and  articulation  of  language,  except  in  the  higher 
races,  seldom  arrive  together  at  some  sort  of  perfection  in  their 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD  73 

effectiveness.  For  instance,  we  may  quote  the  well-known 
fact  that  the  acuity  of  the  ear  among  the  races  paying  peculiar 
attention  to  the  colour  and  pitch  of  the  vowels  exists  only  at 
the  expense  of  precision  in  the  articulation. 

'  Tribes  in  a  rude  state  of  culture  have  a  looseness  and 
uncouthness  of  pronunciation  and  hearing,  which  escapes,  in  its 
group's  fancies  or  individual  distortions,  from  any  unflinching 
law  of  regularity.  The  cases  and  causes  of  variance  from 
analogy,  relative  easing,  symbolical  strengthening  or  weakening, 
scorn  anything  like  a  formulated  law.  The  segmentation, 
dispersion,  and  migration  of  tribes  grown  from  a  homogeneous 
linguistic  stock  in  that  state  of  unculture,  combined  with  the 
complication  from  the  frequent  though  often  unknown  super- 
imposition  of  races  and  languages  in  a  similar  condition  or 
otherwise,  imply  large  divergences  of  pronunciation  apparently 
inconsistent  with  their  genuine  derivation  from  common  parents. 
And  the  efforts  at  reducing  the  whole  of  the  divergences  to 
regular  and  somewhat  mechanical  equivalence  cannot  lead 
otherwise  than  to  numerous  confusions  and  misapprehensions. 

'After  the  disturbance  of  ideologies,  the  most  important 
result  for  all  the  languages  engaged  in  the  struggle,  a  result 
produced  at  the  same  time  by  the  intermingling  of  blood, 
concerns  the  phonesis.' 

The  Arithmetical  Fallacy 

The  'arithmetical  fallacy,'  as  we  may  call  it,  is  well  illus- 
trated in  the  practice  of  exercise-writing  and  translation  into 
the  foreign  language,  a  subject  to  which  we  will  return  later  on. 

In  the  well-known  methods  of  Ahn,  Ollendorff,  and  Arnold 
it  is  developed  into  a  regular  system,  intended  as  a  substitute 
for  the  ordinary  grammar  and  dictionary  method— at  least  for 
the  beginner.  The  result  is  to  exclude  the  really  natural  and 
idiomatic  combinations,  which  cannot  be  formed  a  priori,  and 
to  produce  insipid,  colourless  combinations,  which  do  not  stamp 
themselves  on  the  memory,  many  of  which,  indeed,  could 
hardly  occur  in  real  life,  such  as  the  cat  of  my  aunt  is  more 
treacherous  than  the  dog  of  your  uncle  \  we  speak  about  your 
cousin,  and  your  cousin  Amelia  is  loved  by  Jier  uncle  and  her 
aunt  J  my  sons  have  bought  the  mirrors  of  the  duke  \  horses  are 
taller  than  tigers.  At  one  school  where  I  learnt — or  rather 
made  a  pretence  of  learning — Greek  on  this  system,  the  master 


74     THE    PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

used  to  reconstruct  the  materials  of  the  exercises  given  in  our 
book  into  new  and  strange  combinations,  till  at  last,  with  a 
faint  smile  on  his  ascetic  countenance,  he  evolved  the  following 
sentence,  which  I  remembered  long  after  I  had  forgotten  all 
the  rest  of  my  Greek — the  philosopher  pulled  the  lower  jaw  of 
the  hen  (tou  tijz  o'naipos  senou  gnaepos).  The  results  of  this 
method  have  been  well  parodied  by  Burnand  in  his  New  Sand- 
ford  and  Merton,  thus  :  the  merchant  is  swimming  with  (avec) 
the  gardener's  son,  but  the  Dutchman  has  the  fine  gun. 

Isolated  Phenomena  of  Language  :    Grammar 
and  Dictionary 

One  result  of  language  being  partly  rational,  partly  irrational, 
is  that  some  of  its  phenomena  can  be  brought  under  general 
rules,  some  cannot.  Thus  in  English  the  fact  that  tree  is  made 
into  trees  when  we  speak  of  more  than  one  tree  is  a  general 
one ;  for  we  can  add  s  in  the  same  way  and  with  the  same 
change  of  meaning  to  nearly  all  other  names  of  things.  But 
the  fact  that  /,  r,  e,  e  expresses  the  idea  '  tree,'  and  not  any 
other  idea,  is  an  isolated  one ;  for,  given  these  sounds,  we  can- 
not tell  beforehand  what  the  meaning  will  be,  and  given  the 
idea  '  tree,'  we  cannot  tell  beforehand  what  combination  of 
sounds  will  express  it. 

This  constitutes  the  whole  distinction  between  grammar  and 
dictionary.  Grammar,  like  all  other  sciences,  deals  with  what 
can  be  brought  under  general  laws,  and  relegates  all  the  other 
phenomena  of  language  to  that  collection  of  isolated  facts  which 
we  call  the  dictionary.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  there  is  no 
absolute  line  of  demarcation  between  the  two ;  thus  the  prepo- 
sitions and  many  other  particles  belong  both  to  the  grammar 
and  the  dictionary.  It  also  follows  from  our  definition  that 
what  belongs  only  to  the  dictionary  in  one  language  may  fall — 
partially,  at  least — under  grammar  in  another,  and  vice  versa. 
Thus  in  that  remarkably  symmetrical  family  of  languages,  the 
Semitic — of  which  classical  Arabic  is  the  best  type — many  of 
the  details  of  the  formation  of  roots  and  the  structure  of  the 
primitive  vocabulary  are  rightly  included  in  the  grammar. 
Again,  such  languages  as  German  and  Russian — though  in 
many  respects  they  fall  short  of  the  Semitic  languages  in  word- 
forming  power — still  have  great  resources  in  the  way  of  compo- 
sition and  derivation.     In  English,  on  the  other  hand — which, 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD  75 

from  the  point  of  view  of  the  vocabulary,  must  be  regarded  as 
a  degenerate  language — even  such  a  simple  matter  as  the  for- 
mation of  an  adjective  from  a  noun  is  often  the  business,  not 
of  the  grammar,  but  of  the  dictionary,  as  in  sun,  solar,  man, 
human,  virile. 

We  see,  then,  that  the  existence  of  grammars  and  diction- 
aries is  founded  on  the  nature  of  language  itself. 

The  Natural   Method 

But  many  undeniable  abuses  in  the  use  of  these  helps  have 
led  some  reformers  to  a  revolt  not  only  against  the  use  of 
grammars  and  dictionaries,  but  also  against  all  system  and 
method  whatever  in  learning  languages.  This  revolt  against 
method  has  further  led  to  an  advocacy  of  the  '  natural  method ' 
by  which  children  learn  their  own  language. 

These  enthusiasts  forget  that  the  process  of  learning  one's 
native  language  is  carried  on  under  peculiarly  favourable  cir- 
cumstances, which  cannot  be  even  approximately  reproduced  in 
the  later  study  of  foreign  languages. 

In  learning  our  own  language,  we  begin  young,  and  we  give 
our  whole  time  to  it.  Our  minds  are  perfect  blanks,  and  we 
come  to  it  with  all  our  faculties  fresh  and  unworn.  The  fact, 
too,  that  we  generally  learn  new  words  and  new  ideas  simul- 
taneously, and  that  the  word  is  often  the  key  to  the  idea,  gives 
a  peculiar  vividness  and  interest  to  the  process  of  word-learning. 

But  the  process  has  also  its  disadvantages.  It  is  a  very  slow 
process  ;  and  the  results  are  always  imperfect.  Indeed,  so  im- 
perfect is  this  natural  method,  that  even  with  the  help  of  school- 
training  and  the  incessant  practice  of  everyday  life,  very  few 
ever  attain  a  really  thorough  mastery  of  their  own  language. 
When  we  say  that  any  one  is  '  eloquent,'  or  that  he  '  has  a  good 
style,'  or  '  is  a  good  speaker,'  or  '  can  tell  a  story  well,'  we 
hardly  mean  more  than  that  his  command  of  his  own  language 
is  rather  less  imperfect  than  that  of  his  fellows.  If  languages 
were  learnt  perfectly  by  the  children  of  each  generation,  then 
languages  would  not  change  :  English  children  would  still  speak 
a  language  as  old  at  least  as  '  Anglo-Saxon,'  and  there  would 
be  no  such  languages  as  French  and  Italian.  The  changes  in 
languages  are  simply  slight  mistakes,  which  in  the  course  of 
generations  completely  alter  the  character  of  the  language. 

The  disadvantages  we  have  to  labour  under  when  we  learn  a 


76     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

foreign  language  are  evident  enough,  and  the  later  in  life  we 
begin,  the  more  evident  these  disadvantages  become.  The 
power  of  imitation  has  greatly  decreased,  which  is  especially 
noticeable  in  the  pronunciation.  Not  only  has  the  power  of 
imitation  decreased,  but  also  the  desire  to  use  it :  the  mind  has 
lost  its  freshness  and  susceptibility  to  new  impressions. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  mind  is  formed :  it  is  capable  of 
generalization  and  abstraction ;  it  has  an  immensely  wider  and 
more  accurate  knowledge  of  the  things  and  ideas  represented 
by  words  and  their  combinations ;  it  has  greater  powers  of 
concentration  and  methodical  perseverance.  And  these  advan- 
tages more  than  compensate  the  disadvantages  we  have  just 
mentioned. 

Nevertheless,  there  is  one  disadvantage  which  turns  the 
scale;  that  is,  the  fact  that  the  student  has  already  learnt 
another  language — his  own.  Hence  in  learning  the  new  lan- 
guage he  has,  as  it  were,  to  try  to  unlearn  the  other  language, 
to  struggle  continually  against  the  formidable  difficulties  caused 
by  cross-associations.  When  he  tries  to  pronounce  a  new 
sound,  his  tongue  tends  to  slip  back  into  the  position  for 
forming  the  nearest  native  sound.  So  also  with  word-order, 
grammatical  construction  generally,  and  the  whole  fabric  of 
the  language. 

The  fundamental  objection,  then,  to  the  natural  method  is 
that  it  puts  the  adult  into  the  position  of  an  infant,  which  he 
is  no  longer  capable  of  utilizing,  and,  at  the  same  time,  does 
not  allow  him  to  make  use  of  his  own  special  advantages. 
These  advantages  are,  as  we  have  seen,  the  power  of  analysis 
and  generalization — in  short,  the  power  of  using  a  grammar 
and  dictionary. 

Residence  Abroad 

The  natural  method  almost  necessarily  implies  a  residence 
in  the  country  where  the  language  is  spoken.  But  residence 
abroad  has  also  its  own  linguistic  drawbacks. 

It  sounds  well  to  talk  of  '  picking  up  a  language  by  ear  in  the 
country  itself,'  but  most  good  linguists  "will  confess  that  they 
learnt  nearly  everything  from  books,  especially  in  the  beginning 
of  their  study  of  the  foreign  language,  and  but  little  from  con- 
versation. There  are,  indeed,  many  obstacles  to  learning  from 
conversation.     In  the  hurry  of  talk  we  are  apt  to  mishear  and 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD  77 

forget,  so  that  what  we  pick  up  in  that  way  is  never  reliable. 
Conversation  is  really  not  a  means  of  learning  new  words  and 
expressions,  but  only  of  practice  in  hearing  and  reproducing 
what  we  have  already  learnt.  In  conversation  we  also  have 
the  disadvantage  of  hearing  only  the  answers  to  our  questions, 
while  we  have  no  means  of  knowing  whether  our  questions  are 
expressed  correctly,  for  it  is  very  difficult  to  overhear  the 
natives  asking  questions  which  will  serve  as  patterns  for  our 
own.  Rash  reproduction  of  what  we  hear  casually  may  land  us 
in  vulgar,  ludicrously  slangy,  or  otherwise  objectionable  ex- 
pressions. The  results  of  picking  up  a  language  entirely  by 
ear  from  the  beginning  may  be  seen  in  uneducated  adults  who 
come  among  a  population  speaking  a  strange  language :  after 
years  of  residence  in  the  country  they  are  often  unable  to  utter 
anything  but  a  few  words  and  phrases. 

In  fact,  a  residence  in  the  country  itself  before  the  elements 
have  been  mastered  at  home  is  positively  injurious,  for  it  forces 
the  learner  to  improvise  incorrect  expressions  on  the  spur  of 
the  moment ;  and  these  incorrect  expressions  then  tend  to 
become  stereotyped  by  incessant  repetition,  so  that  they  can 
scarcely  be  got  rid  of.  This  is  specially  the  case  with  the 
equivalents  of  such  particles  and  phrases  as  Oh  !  to  be  sure,  don't 
you  know. 

Nor  must  the  learner  expect  too  much  from  a  residence 
abroad.  There  are  many  external  obstacles,  especially  in  the 
case  of  English-speakers.  Thus  it  is  often  almost  impossible 
for  an  Englishman  to  learn  educated  colloquial  German  in  the 
country,  because  all  the  Germans  want  to  practise  their  English 
upon  him ;  and,  besides,  he  is  often  thrown  by  circumstances 
almost  exclusively  among  English-speakers  in  foreign  schools 
and  boarding-houses.  I  heard  of  one  case  in  which  an  English 
boy  was  at  Bonn  for  a  year ;  when  he  came  home,  he  said  he 
had  not  spoken  a  single  word  of  German  the  whole  time,  not 
even  in  the  shops. 

Then  there  is  the  difficulty  of  avoiding  confusion  of  dialects, 
even  if  the  learner  is  able  to  choose  his  place  of  residence 
exclusively  from  that  point  of  view ;  in  a  University  town  the 
professors  and  students  come  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  and 
therefore  often  speak  different  dialects. 

Many  people,  however,  who  admit  the  utility  of  grammars 
and  dictionaries,  are  inclined  to  discard  systematic  study  as 
soon  as  they  have    mastered  the  elements  of   the  language, 


78    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

especially  if  they  have  an  opportunity  of  pursuing  their  studies 
in  the  country  itself.  A  little  reflection  ought  to  convince  them 
that  systematic  study  is  almost  as  necessary  at  the  end  of  the 
course  as  at  the  beginning.  After  what  has  been  said  about 
the  difficulty,  or  rather  impossibility,  of  picking  up  reliable 
knowledge  by  hearing — which  applies  also,  though  perhaps  in 
a  less  degree,  to  cursory  reading— it  is  evident  that  giving  up 
systematic  study  means  simply  giving  up  learning.  After  we 
have  once  given  up  systematic  study,  we  cannot  be  said  to 
learn  the  language,  we  only  '  keep  it  up.' 

Those  who  wish  to  derive  the  fullest  benefit  from  residence 
in  the  country  itself  should,  therefore,  be  guided  by  the  follow- 
ing principles  :  (i)  prepare  yourself  thoroughly  beforehand;  (2) 
choose  a  place  where  you  will  have  an  opportunity  of  hearing  a 
good  standard  of  pronunciation  and  language  generally,  as  un- 
mixed as  possible ;  (3)  keep  up  systematic  study  till  the  last. 

Speaking  Foreign  Languages  at  Home 

There  are  several  substitutes  for  residence  abroad.  One  is, 
to  converse  with  foreigners  in  one's  own  country.  In  this  way 
many  foreigners  get  a  good  knowledge  of  colloquial  French 
and  English.  It  is  evident  that  the  success  of  this  method 
depends  to  a  great  extent  on  the  number  of  foreigners  who 
come  to  the  learner's  country,  and  on  the  extent  to  which  they 
learn  the  language  of  the  country,  the  most  favourable  condi- 
tions being  for  the  learner  to  speak  the  language  of  a  small 
country  much  frequented  by  foreign  tourists,  as  when  a 
Norwegian  learns  English  from  tourists  of  that  nationality. 

But  this  course  has  its  drawbacks  and  dangers,  which  become 
more  and  more  evident  the  more  the  conditions  diverge  from 
those  sketched  above.  A  tourist,  who  stays  only  a  short  time 
in  the  country,  preserves  his  national  habits  of  thought  and 
speech,  which  are  generally  those  of  an  educated  man ;  but 
foreigners  who  settle  permanently  in  another  country  may 
partially  lose  their  nationality  in  speech  as  well  as  in  other 
respects,  and  may  be  bad  models  from  the  beginning. 

The  greatest  of  these  drawbacks  is,  of  course,  that  the  sur- 
roundings are  not  foreign,  so  that  we  miss  a  good  deal  of 
what  we  should  learn  spontaneously  in  the  country  itself,  and 
what  we  do  learn  is  learnt  under  wrong  surroundings  and 
associations.     Thus  instead  of  learning  the  words  and  phrases 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD  79 

associated  with  the  national  games  and  amusements  of  the 
foreigner,  we  hear  perhaps  the  description  of  a  game  of  cricket 
or  lawn  tennis,  interlarded,  of  course,  with  many  English  words 
and  phrases.  German  clerks  in  our  large  towns  may  be  heard 
using  such  expressions  as  die  bill  of  lading  ist  noch  nicht  da,  and, 
of  course,  da  hatf  ich  einen  kep  ( =  cab)  genommen.  Foreigners 
who  have  lived  long  in  the  country  often  import  even  its 
idioms  into  their  own  language.  Thus  Germans  in  America  in 
conversation  with  each  other  have  been  heard  to  say  backen  Sie 
nicht  aus,  '  don't  back  out  (of  your  promise) ! ' 

Similar  objections  apply  to  the  practice  of  letting  children 
learn  languages  from  foreign  nurses  and  governesses. 

Of  course,  the  younger  the  child,  the  more  perfect  its  imitation 
of  the  foreign  language.  But  if  this  is  carried  too  far,  it  implies 
that  the  child  does  not  learn  its  own  language.  Then,  again, 
if  young  children  learn  easily,  they  forget  still  more  easily  :  in 
extreme  cases  a  child  may  learn  a  little  of  its  own  language, 
then  learn  a  foreign  language  tolerably  well,  forgetting  its  own 
language  in  the  process ;  it  then  begins  to  learn  its  own 
language  again,  and  forgets  the  foreign  language,  the  final 
result  being  simply  to  delay  its  learning  of  its  own  language. 

The  results,  too,  are  generally  unsatisfactory  in  many  ways  : 
the  child  learns  to  speak  the  little  it  learns  with  great  fluency, 
but  the  pronunciation  is  not  good,  nor  the  construction  perfect ; 
and  if  there  is  a  large  family  of  children,  they  soon  invent  a 
French  or  German  of  their  own  with  a  pronunciation  made  up 
exclusively  of  English  sounds.  Good  results  are  due  either  to 
exceptional  ability  on  the  part  of  the  child,  or  to  exceptionally 
favourable  circumstances  which  make  the  child  bilingual  from 
the  beginning.  Thus  when  the  children  of  foreign  parents 
settled  in  England  speak  the  two  languages  perfectly,  this  is 
not  a  case  of  learning  a  foreign  language  in  the  ordinary  sense 
of  the  word,  any  more  than  when  children  are  taken  abroad  by 
their  parents. 

Natural  Aptitude 

Every  one  knows  that  the  natural  aptitude  for  learning  foreign 
languages  varies  greatly  in  different  individuals.  It  varies  in 
children  as  well  as  adults,  though  perhaps  not  to  the  same 
degree. 


80    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

Children  show  different  degrees  of  quickness  and  accuracy  in 
learning  to  speak  their  own  language.  Gabelentz  says,  in 
speaking  of  children  learning  their  own  language  (Gab.  65) : 
'  Some  take  years  to  overcome  the  difficulties  of  pronunciation 
and  grammar,  while  for  others  these  difficulties  seem  scarcely 
to  exist.  I  could  mention  German  children  who,  from  the 
very  beginning  of  their  attempts  to  speak,  pronounced  the 
gutturals  and  the  consonant-groups  of  their  own  language  and 
even  foreign  words  with  ease  and  correctness,  and  seldom 
violated  the  rules  of  German  gender,  or  the  irregularities  in 
the  formation  of  the  plural  and  the  conjugation  of  the  verbs. 
Other  children  built  up  independently  a  language  of  their  own 
with  special  laws.'  He  goes  on  to  mention  a  child  who,  of  its 
own  accord,  developed  a  system  of  modifying  the  vowels  of 
the  German  words  it  learnt  for  symbolic  purposes,  some- 
what as  in  the  Semitic  languages,  and  thus  constructed  a 
language  of  its  own,  in  which,  for  instance,  the  vowel  u  was 
associated  with  bigness,  the  vowel  *  with  littleness. 

This  is  interesting,  as  illustrating  what  we  shall  have  occasion 
to  notice  hereafter,  that  originality  of  mind  does  not  make  a  good 
linguist.  In  fact,  a  talent  for  languages  does  not  imply  any 
higher  intellectual  development  of  any  kind.  The  truly  original 
mind  seizes  instinctively  on  the  most  efficient  means  of  expres- 
sion at  its  command— that  is  to  say,  it  prefers  to  express  itself 
in  the  language  it  knows  best,  which  is  its  own.  Such  minds 
avoid  learning  foreign  languages  as  much  as  possible.  Sweden- 
borg  would  no  doubt  sooner  have  written  in  Swedish  than  in 
Latin,  were  it  not  for  his  wish  to  have  his  books  read  as  widely 
as  possible.  As  for  those  who  are  drawn  to  the  original 
investigation  of  the  science  of  language,  they  do  not,  as  a  rule, 
speak  them  any  better  than  other  people — often  worse.  We 
need  only  mention  the  bad  Latin  in  which  the  great  founder 
of  comparative  philology  made  his  first  discoveries  known. 

The  considerations  to  which  we  were  led  before,  namely, 
that  languages  are  only  partly  rational,  show  that  their  acqui- 
sition must  be,  to  a  great  extent  at  least,  a  mechanical  process. 
Mechanical  learning  does  not  require  originality  of  mind  or  a 
critical  spirit.  These  are,  indeed,  hindrances  rather  than  helps. 
What  is  required  is  the  faculty  of  observation,  quick  imitation, 
adaptiveness  to  grasp  the  phenomena  of  the  new  language,  and 
memory  to  retain  them. 

All  these  qualifications  are  required  in  the  highest  degree  in 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD  81 

speaking,  ease  in  which— especially,  of  course,  with  the  more 
remote  languages — is  the  greatest  test  of  the  born  linguist  as 
opposed  to  the  scientific  philologist.  One  of  the  most  perfect 
types  of  what  the  latter  would  call  '  the  parrot  linguist '  was 
Palmer  the  Orientalist ;  and  it  used  to  be  said  of  him  at  Cam- 
bridge that  when  he  talked  to  Orientals  in  their  own  language, 
he  seemed  to  speak  faster  than  they  did.  This  excessive 
fluency  often  blinds  the  superficial  observer  to  the  defectiveness 
of  the  imitation,  especially  in  the  pronunciation,  which  in  the 
born  linguist  of  the  highest  type  is  always  good,  but  apparently 
never  perfect,  unless  with  the  help  of  phonetic  training.  It  is 
said  that  when  Palmer  talked  to  the  Arabs  of  the  desert,  they 
thought  he  was  an  Arab  of  a  different  tribe. 

There  is  also  a  lower  type  of  general  linguist  who  cannot 
speak,  but  reads  a  large  number  of  languages,  and,  perhaps, 
writes  them.  This  type  is  the  natural  result  of  the  combination 
of  a  less  quick  mind  with  a  retentive  memory  and  a  natural 
taste  and  enthusiasm  for  polyglot  linguistics. 

Although  originality  and  independence  of  mind  are  to  some 
extent  anti-linguistic,  they  are  not  positive  bars  to  the  acquisition 
of  languages.  Strength  of  purpose,  based  on  a  conviction  of 
the  utility  or  perhaps  the  absolute  necessity  of  learning  a  given 
language,  will  work  wonders,  especially  if  there  is  a  real  love  of 
the  study,  which  does  not  necessarily  imply  any  special  talent. 

It  is  difficult  to  define  the  opposite  extreme  of  the  purely 
anti-linguistic  mind  except  as  the  negation  of  the  other  extreme, 
that  is,  as  the  result  of  slowness  of  mind,  want  of  adaptability 
and  power  of  imitation,  together  with  shortness  of  memory. 
Such  an  absolutely  anti-linguistic  mind  is  the  slave  of  the 
associations  of  its  own  language  :  when  it  expresses  itself  in 
a  foreign  language,  it  tries  to  do  so  by  translating  the  native 
expression  of  each  idea  word  for  word  into  the  foreign  language, 
perhaps  grammatically,  but  regardless  of  idiom  and  the  genius 
of  the  foreign  language,  as  when  an  Englishman  of  the  old- 
fashioned  John  Bull  type  said  to  a  German  uh  habe  einen  groszen 
grist  Sie  niederzuklopfen.  This  anti-linguistic  mind  is  not  un- 
common among  grammarians  and  philologists. 

It  must,  of  course,  be  understood  that  the  intellectual 
qualities  which  constitute  linguistic  talent  are  of  a  special  kind  : 
the  quickness  must  be  linguistic  quickness,  the  memory  must 
be  a  linguistic  memory,  however  much  it  may  extend  to 
other  subjects  as  well.     In  the  same  way  the  adaptability  and 

G 


\ 


82     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

sympathy  must  be  linguistic  sympathy  :  the  feeling  which  makes 
us  feel  an  interest  in  the  individuality  of  each  language — in  the 
way  in  which  it  expresses  ideas. 

The  linguistic  interest,  though  allied  to  the  literary,  is  not 
identical  with  it — least  of  all,  in  the  higher  developments  of  the 
latter.  Thus  the  great  linguist  Palmer  wrote  verses  with  great 
facility,  but  these  verses  had  nothing  of  poetry  beyond  the 
mere  form,  which  was  itself  generally  trivial.  No  phenomenal 
linguist  has  ever  produced  real  literature,  nor,  what  is  more 
remarkable,  ever  made  any  great  contribution  to  the  science  of 
language. 

National  Aptitude 

There  does  not  seem  to  be  any  valid  reason  for  supposing 
that  one  nation  has  more  talent  for  languages  than  another. 
The  great  linguists  have  not  been  confined  to  one  country  any 
more  than  the  phenomenally  strong  men. 

But  nevertheless  the  observations  we  have  made  concerning 
individuals  apply,  to  some  extent,  to  nations  also. 

In  the  first  place,  original  and  intellectually  independent 
nations  which  have  a  long  civilization  behind  them,  do  not 
generally  take  kindly  to  learning  foreign  languages.  A  French- 
man in  a  mixed  company  abroad  expects  every  one  to  talk 
French,  even  if  he  is  the  only  Frenchman  present.  Englishmen 
are  less  egotistical,  but  they  generally  prefer  to  talk  English 
with  foreigners,  even  if  they  can  speak  the  foreigner's  language 
better  than  the  foreigner  speaks  English.  The  Germans,  on 
the  other  hand,  whose  sense  of  nationality  has  been  of  later 
growth,  never  speak  their  own  language  if  they  have  a  chance 
of  speaking  a  foreign  one  ;  but,  as  might  be  expected  from  the 
most  intellectual  nation  in  Europe,  they  seldom  speak  foreign 
languages  really  well. 

The  imitative  Russian  and  the  supple  Oriental  seem  to  be 
often  better  linguists  than  the  slower  and  more  independent 
European.  But  the  Russian  aptitude  for  learning  languages 
has  been  doubtless  much  exaggerated.  Foreigners  who  have 
lived  long  in  the  interior  of  Russia  have  often  assured  me  that 
the  Russians,  as  a  rule,  do  not  speak  foreign  languages  better 
than  other  nations.  Tolstoi,  too,  in  one  of  his  novels,  remarks 
of  one  of  his  Russian  characters  that  '  he  spoke  that  excellent 
French  which  is  so  seldom  heard  now.'     The  fact  is,  that  those 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD  83 

Russians  who  used  to  speak  perfect  French  had  to  pay  the 
price  in  expatriation  and  partial  oblivion  of  their  own  language. 
We  may  safely  prophesy  that  as  the  national  life  of  the  Russians 
developes,  they  will  become  worse  and  worse  linguists. 

Some  of  the  conditions  of  national  linguistic  skill  are  purely 
external.  Belgians,  Swiss,  Dutchmen,  and  Danes  are  better 
linguists  than  Englishmen  partly  because  the  smallness  of  their 
respective  countries  obliges  them  to  learn  other  languages. 
The  Russians  were  obliged  to  be  good  linguists,  partly  because 
their  retarded  civilization  obliged  them  to  be  imitative  and 
adaptive  with  regard  to  the  older  civilizations  of  Western 
Europe,  partly  because  the  newness  and  inaccessibility  of 
their  own  language  prevented  foreigners  from  acquiring  it. 

One  Method  for  All 

However  great  the  differences  may  be  between  individuals 
and  between  nations  as  regards  ease  of  learning  foreign 
languages,  these  differences  are  differences  of  degree  only. 
All  minds  work  by  the  same  fundamental  psychological  laws. 
No  one  can  learn  a  language  without  exerting  the  faculties  of  . 
association  and  memory.  However  bad  his  linguistic  memory, 
however  weak  his  linguistic  associations  may  be,  he  must  have 
some  linguistic  memory  and  be  capable  of  forming  some 
linguistic  associations,  or  he  will  not  be  able  to  learn  any 
language  at  all — not  even  his  own.  The  mere  fact  of  his 
having  learnt  his  own  language  shows  that  he  is  capable  of 
learning  other  languages  as  well. 

That  the  difference  between  the  dull  learner  of  languages 
and  the  born  linguist  is  one  of  degree  only,  seems  to  be  con- 
firmed by  the  fact  that  even  such  a  prodigy  as  Mezzofanti  used 
to  learn  paradigms  by  heart  like  any  schoolboy.  The  only 
difference  was  that  Mezzofanti  learnt  them  quicker  and  remem- 
bered them  better,  and  was  more  ready  in  applying  them  to  the 
grammatical  analysis  of  the  texts  he  read.  His  memory  was  so 
retentive  that  he  could  repeat  a  whole  folio  page  of  a  Greek 
Father  by  heart  after  reading  it  through  once. 

These  considerations  will  help  us  to  settle  the  important 
question,  how  far  the  method  of  learning  languages  ought  to  be 
the  same — that  is,  of  course,  the  same  for  all  normally  and  fully 
developed  minds. 


84    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

If  one  linguist  gives  another  linguist  an  account  of  the 
method  by  which  he  has  learnt — or  professes  to  have  learnt — 
a  language,  the  other  may  agree  with  him,  or  may  think  some 
other  method  better.  But  he  may  also  take  an  agnostic 
attitude  :  he  may  say  that  every  one  has  his  own  method  of 
learning  languages,  and  that  it  is  ■  impossible  to  setup  any 
general  principles. 

But  the  facts  we  have  been  considering  certainly  tend  to  show 
that  even  if  there  is  not  one  absolutely  invariable  method,  there 
are  at  least  general  principles.  If  in  learning  languages  by 
whatever  conceivable  method  we  must  all  make  use  of  the 
same  fundamental  psychological  processes,  and  if  these  faculties 
are  present  in  all  minds,  differing  only  in  degree,  it  seems 
reasonable  to  assume  that  all  learners  will  have  to  travel  by 
the  same  road,  although  some  will  take  a  longer  time  for  the 
journey. 

The  comparison  of  the  process  of  learning  languages  with  a 
journey  is  halting  in  this  respect,  that  most  of  the  learners 
can  hardly  be  said  to  reach  their  destination  at  all ;  that  is, 
they  fail  to  learn  the  foreign  language  perfectly.  But  this, 
again,  is  only  a  question  of  degree  ;  for  it  is  doubtful  whether 
even  the  best  linguists  learn  foreign  languages  perfectly — unless, 
of  course,  they  learn  it  under  circumstances  in  which  any  one 
might  reasonably  be  expected  to  become  perfectly  bilingual. 
Thus,  as  already  remarked,  Palmer  was  taken  for  an  Arab,  but 
never  for  an  Arab  of  the  tribe  he  was  among,  showing  that  he 
did  not  really  speak  any  one  dialect  perfectly,  but  took  the 
Arabs  in  partly  by  his  amazing  volubility  and  powers  of 
mimicry  generally.  It  must  be  remembered  that  he  was  not 
only  a  linguist,  but  also  a  powerful  mesmerist  and  a  most 
expert  conjurer.     All  this  helped  the  illusion. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  get  at  the  exact  truth  about  these  born 
linguists,  most  of  whom  are  surrounded  with  a  mist  of  exagge- 
ration and  fable.  Indeed,  one  does  not  quite  see  how  such  a 
statement  as  that  such-a-one  '  speaks  forty  languages  like  a 
native '  is  to  be  tested.  One  would  first  have  to  collect  forty 
indubitable  natives ;  then  to  confront  them  with  the  linguist ; 
and  then  to  make  sure  that  their  complimentary  criticisms  of  his 
speaking  were  to  be  taken  literally.  As  it  is,  such  statements 
are  generally  made  by  people  who  know  nothing  of  the  lan- 
guages in  question,  and  who  draw  their  conclusions  solely  from 
the  fluency  of  the  speaker,  or  take  his  statements  on  trust.   The 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES  OF   METHOD  85 

achievements  of  Mezzofanti  have  certainly  been  exaggerated 
in  this  way.  I  was  told  by  Prof.  Johan  Storm,  who  got  his 
information  from  a  Norwegian  who  had  had  an  interview  with 
the  great  linguist,  that  the  current  statements  about  his  being 
able  to  distinguish  the  different  Norwegian  dialects  were  pure 
fable,  and  that  he  kept  his  visitor  waiting  a  long  time  in  the 
antechamber,  while  he  primed  himself  with  a  selection  of  Nor- 
wegian phrases,  which  he  uttered  slowly  and  with  considerable 
hesitation.  It  is  really  not  difficult  to  get,  or  make,  the  reputa- 
tion of  speaking  a  foreign  language  perfectly.  An  Englishman 
travelling  in  out-of-the  way  parts  of  South  Germany  has  only 
to  speak  anglicized  book  German  to  be  taken  for  a  Prussian, 
and  then  to  go  home  and  tell  people  he  was  taken  for  a  German 
everywhere. 

But  even  if  we  grant  that  some  adults  are  practically  in- 
capable of  learning  to  speak  a  remote  language  with  fluency,  or 
even  of  reading  its  classics  with  ease,  this  does  not  invalidate 
our  conclusion  that  all  must  travel  by  what  is  essentially  the 
same  road  :  the  fact  that  the  traveller  does  not  reach  his  desti- 
nation by  one  road  does  not  prove  that  he  would  have  got  any 
further  by  another  road. 

It  is  lastly  to  be  observed  that  the  doubts  and  objections 
we  have  had  to  meet  are  founded  on  the  results  obtained  by 
the  antiquated  methods  of  study  still  generally  employed  in  this 
country.  One  of  the  most  important  results  of  the  perfection 
of  rational  methods  will  be  that  differences  in  natural  aptitude 
will  be  more  and  more  levelled  by  systematic  training.  The 
same  adult  who  would  otherwise  be  incapable  of  imitating  a 
single  unfamiliar  foreign  sound,  would  certainly,  if  he  had  been 
trained  in  phonetics  from  his  infancy,  be  able  to  reproduce 
every  foreign  sound  with  ease  and  perfect  accuracy,  and  would 
therefore  in  this  important  respect  be  completely  on  a  level 
with— or  rather,  superior  to — the  most  highly  gifted  linguist 
trained  on  the  old  system. 

No  training  will  ever  make  a  slow  mind  or  a  bad  memory 
equal  to  the  mind  and  memory  of  a  great  linguist :  we  can 
never  expect  that  all  learners  will  reach  the  goal  with  the  same 
ease  and  quickness.  But  perfected  methods  will  reduce  these 
inequalities  to  a  minimum ;  and  we  may  reasonably  hope  that 
they  will  bring  the  goal  within  the  reach  of  all  who  are  ready 
to  make  the  necessary  sacrifices  of  time  and  trouble. 


86    THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

Another  consideration  is,  that  nothing  will  ever  make  the 
learning  of  languages  easy :  it  will  always  be  a  difficult  and 
unnatural  process — unnatural  because  it  involves  constant  con- 
flicts with  the  associations  of  the  learner's  native  language.  It 
is  not  true  that  '  to  learn  to  speak  no  matter  what  language  is 
a  thing  as  natural  and  easy  to  a  child  as  learning  to  fly  is  to  a 
bird.'  This  was  said  by  Gouin  in  praise  of  his  own  system,  the 
great  merit  of  which,  according  to  Gouin's  disciple  Swan,  is 
that  '  the  stupidest  scholar  can  learn  it  as  easily  as  the  smartest ' 
because  'all  intelligences  are  sensibly  equal '  (Br.  G.  29).  This 
last  statement  is  only  an  extravagant  exaggeration  of  the  one- 
method-for-all  principle.  The  preceding  statement  may  be 
true,  but,  unfortunately,  learning  Gouin's  method  does  not  imply 
knowing  the  language. 

The   Historical   Method 

With  the  rise  of  comparative  philology  and  its  great  develop- 
ment during  the  present  century  came  the  historical  view  of 
language.  It  was  shown  that  the  irregularities  and  anomalies 
of  language  could  be  explained  by  comparison  with  their  older 
forms  as  preserved  both  in  the  earlier  stages  of  the  language 
itself  and  in  the  cognate  languages  belonging  to  the  same 
family,  and  that  the  further  a  language  is  traced  back,  the  more 
clear  and  regular  does  its  structure  seem  to  become. 

Hence  it  was  inferred  that  the  historical  treatment  of  language 
would  also  lighten  the  drudgery  of  acquiring  a  practical  mastery 
of  its  grammar. 

Although  the  scientific  study  of  language  is  impossible 
without  historical  method,  it  is  possible  to  carry  the  historical 
view  of  language  too  far.  The  historical  study  of  language 
degenerates  into  one-sided  antiquarianism  when,  as  is  often  the 
case,  it  concentrates  all  its  energies  on  the  determination  of  the 
oldest  formations  in  a  language  or  group  of  languages,  valuing 
the  inflections  and  other  forms  of  modern  languages  only  in  as 
far  as  they  throw  light  on  those  of  the  older  stages. 

The  great  defect  of  antiquarianism  is  that  it  ignores  the  fact 
that  every  language  and  every  stage  of  a  language  has  an 
individuality  of  its  own.  It  is  not  enough  to  trace  the  forms 
of  a  language  back  to  what  we  conventionally  regard  as  their 
original  forms ;  we  must  also  gain  a  clear  idea  of  the  structure 
of  the  language  of  a  given  period  as  an  organic  whole  without 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD  87 

regard  to  the  antiquity  of  its  morphological  characteristics  or 
their  older  forms.  From  this  point  of  view  it  is,  for  instance, 
of  primary  importance  to  know  that  the  modern  Scandinavian 
languages  have  a  passive  voice,  while  the  fact  that  this  inflection 
is  of  late  origin  is  comparatively  unimportant.  Again,  a  know- 
ledge of  the  fact  that  such  a  plural  as  feet  is  exceptional  and 
anomalous,  and  that  the  great  majority  of  English  plurals  are 
formed  by  adding  -s,  is  essential  to  the  comprehension  of  the 
structure  of  English,  while  the  historical  explanation  of  the 
origin  of  the  form  feet  through  foii,  fosti,  feet,  fet,  fit  does  not 
materially  assist  that  comprehension. 

It  is  no  doubt  interesting  to  know  that  such  plurals  as  men, 
feet,  mice  were  once  perfectly  regular,  and  interesting  to  trace 
the  steps  by  which  they  gradually  assumed  their  present  forms ; 
but  this  does  not  in  the  slightest  degree  modify  the  fact  that 
these  plurals  are  now  isolated  forms  or  irregularities.  The 
difficulty  the  foreign  learner  feels  in  mastering  such  forms  lies 
in  the  effort  of  forming  associations  supported  only  by  a  few 
words,  and  directly  opposed  to  those  involved  in  acquiring  the 
regular  plurals ;  nor  is  the  tendency  to  expect  mans,  foots, 
mouses  instead  of  men,  feet,  mice  and  the  effort  of  overcoming 
this  tendency  at  all  affected  by  the  learner's  conviction  that  the 
forms  that  are  now  isolated  irregularities  were  once  regular. 

Mischievous  as  one-sided  antiquarianism  is  in  the  scientific 
study  of  language,  it  is  still  more  so  in  the  practical  study  of 
language.  As  we  see,  the  anomalies  and  irregularities  of 
language  retain  all  their  practical  difficulty,  however  much  they 
may  be  illuminated  by  the  light  of  history ;  and  the  main  result 
of  the  application  of  the  historical  method  is  to  add  to  the 
effort  of  overcoming  the  cross-associations  involved  in  the 
anomalies  and  irregularities  themselves,  the  further  one  of 
mastering  a  number  of  theoretical  statements  and  of  learning 
a  number  of  hypothetical  forms  which  afterwards  have  to  be 
unlearnt. 

The   Crude  Form  System 

An  extreme  development  of  the  historical  method  is  the 
so-called  '  crude  form  '  system. 

It  is  strange  that  the  advocates  of  this  system  do  not  see  that 
the  student  who  has  learnt,  for  instance,  the  Greek  paradigm 
dnax,  dnaktos,  etc.,  by  heart  has  learnt  exactly  as  much  as 


88     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

another  who  has  been  first  taught  that  the  crude  form  is  anakt, 
that  the  nominative  is  formed  by  adding  -s,  and  that  anakts  is 
then  contracted  into  anaks,  dnax,  the  only  difference  being  that 
the  crude-former  not  only  has  to  learn  the  actual  forms  dnax, 
dnaktos,  but  also  a  variety  of  hypothetical  forms,  besides  having 
to  make  the  additional  effort  of  remembering  that  the  forms 
anakt,  anakts,  etc.,  do  not  exist.  So  also  in  Finnish  the  mere 
juxtaposition  of  such  forms  as  nominative  singular  kiisi,  '  hand,' 
illative  kciieen,  plural  nominative  kddet,  together  with  the  posses- 
sive nominative  singular  kateni,  '  my  hand,'  is  enough  to  give  a 
practical  knowledge  of  the  fact  that  the  stem  or  crude  form  is 
kdte,  from  which  the  nominative  singular  kdsi  and  the  nomi- 
native plural  kddet  are  formed  by  perfectly  regular  sound- 
changes.  Putting  kdte  at  the  head  of  the  paradigm  simply 
unsettles  the  learner's  associations  with  the  nominative  kdsi; 
and  the  confusion  is  made  worse,  when,  as  is  sometimes  the 
case  in  Finnish  grammars,  nouns  are  given  sometimes  in  their 
nominative  singular,  sometimes  in  the  form  of  the  bare  stem. 
If  the  learner  only  has  two  such  forms  as  kdsi,  kateni,  or  kdsi, 
kddet,  he  has  material  enough  to  enable  him  to  construct  the 
stem  together  with  all  the  inflectional  forms. 

The  Etymological  Fallacy- 
Similar  criticisms  apply  also  to  the  '  etymological  fallacy.' 
The  meaning  of  a  word  in  a  given  period  of  a  given  language 
is  a  matter  of  usage,  and  the  fact  of  its  having  had  a  certain 
meaning  at  some  earlier  period  or  in  some  cognate  language 
does  not  necessarily  afford  any  help  in  determining,  and  still 
less  in  remembering,  its  present  meaning.  Etymological  trans- 
lation should,  above  all,  be  avoided  in  dictionaries.  Thus  in 
Old  English  dictionaries  we  find  g<)>ofta  defined  as  '  one  who 
sits  on  the  same  rowing-bench,  companion ; '  but  the  only 
meaning  the  word  has  is  the  second  one,  the  former  being  an 
inference  from  the  etymology  of  the  word.  The  inference  is 
no  doubt  correct  in  as  far  as  it  assumes  that  the  word  had  the 
other  meaning  once ;  but  this  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  in 
the  language  as  known  to  us  this  meaning  does  not  occur. 
Besides,  any  one  can  draw  the  inference  for  himself;  so  it  is 
a  waste  of  space  first  to  give  the  etymology,  and  then  to  inter- 
polate the  inference  drawn  from  it  among  the  meanings. 
Etymological  translation  often  takes  the  silly  form  of  trans- 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES    OF   METHOD  89 

lating  an  Old  English  word  by  some  obsolete  or  dialectal  word 
which  is  assumed — sometimes  erroneously— to  be  etymolo- 
gically  connected  with  the  other  word,  as  when  the  Old 
English  beam  is  translated  by  the  Scotch  bairn — as  if  modern 
English  were  such  a  poverty-stricken  language  that  it  could  not 
find  a  word  for  '  child ' !  Then  the  German  lied  and  the  Old 
English  leo\  is  translated  lay — a  French  word  which  has 
nothing  to  do  with  lied.  This  practice  is  carried  to  an  extrava- 
gant extent  in  many  translations  from  the  Icelandic.  On  this 
principle  we  might  translate  the  German  Jener  kleine  knabe  ist 
?iichtfaul  by  yon  clean  knave  is  naught  foul.  It  has  also  been 
suggested  to  me  that  the  lines  in  Faust — 

Bist  du  es,  Faust,  dess  stimme  mir  erklang, 
Ein  furchtsam,  weggekriimmter  wurm  ? 

ought  to  be  translated — 

Be'st  thoti  it,  Fist,  whose  voice  to  me  did  clink, 
A  frights ome  'way-y  crumpled  worm? 

Comparison  with  Cognate  Languages 

Even  when  the  historical  method  does  not  require  the  help 
of  hypothetical,  non-existent  forms,  it  involves  the  importation 
of  words  from  other  languages  into  the  text-books  of  the 
language  which  is  being  studied. 

Now  it  is  true  that,  for  instance,  a  knowledge  of  Latin 
considerably  facilitates  the  acquisition  of  Italian  and  the  other 
Romance  languages.  But  where  the  connection  between  the 
two  languages  is  self-evident,  the  help  of  scientific  historical 
philology  is  not  needed  :  every  one  sees  for  himself  that  padre  is 
connected  with  patrem,  aimer  with  amare.  If  the  connection 
is  not  self-evident,  the  question  arises,  Is  a  knowledge  of  the 
etymology  of  any  practical  use?  How,  for  instance,  can  the 
Latin  sitim  help  us  to  remember  the  French  soif  7  Why,  they 
have  only  a  single  sound  in  common  !  '  That  is  true,'  says 
the  philologist ;  '  but  when  the  learner  has  once  mastered  the 
intermediate  stages,  the  connection  becomes  perfectly  clear.' 
Very  likely  it  does;  but  when  it  turns  out  that  these  inter- 
mediate stages  involve  no  less  than  nine  distinct  sound-changes, 
some  of  them  very  difficult  to  understand,  we  are  forced  to 
ask,  Is  it  practical  and  rational  to  seek  our  object  in  so  round- 
about a  way  ?     So  also  a  knowledge  of  Sanskrit  is  a  great  help 


oo     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

in  learning  Zend ;  for  the  languages  are  so  closely  allied  that 
whole  passages  of  Zend  can  be  translated  into  Sanskrit  word 
for  word  simply  by  applying  the  laws  of  etymological  sound- 
change.  But,  as  we  have  seen  (p.  55),  this  very  closeness  is 
a  source  of  difficulty;  so  that,  instead  of  wishing  to  have  his 
associations  with  Sanskrit  strengthened,  the  learner  ought 
rather  to  try  to  forget  his  Sanskrit  as  soon  as  it  has  helped 
him  over  the  first  difficulties;  and  consequently  he  is  only 
exasperated  when  he  finds  he  cannot  look  at  a  paradigm  in 
his  Zend  grammar  without  having  his  mind  confused  by  the 
constant  intrusion  of  parallel  Sanskrit  forms.  Nor  does  the 
beginner  in  Arabic  want  to  be  reminded  of  Hebrew.  It  is 
besides  conceivable  that  the  study  of  Zend  or  Arabic  may 
be  begun  without  any  previous  knowledge  of  the  two  other 
languages,  in  which  case  the  confusions  resulting  from  cross- 
associations  become  still  more  serious. 

Comparative  Philology  Sometimes  Useful 

But  our  scepticism  with  regard  to  the  help  afforded  by 
comparative  philology  and  etymology  must  not  be  exaggerated 
into  an  unreasoning  rejection  of  it. 

Cognate  forms  may  be  just  far  enough  from  one  another  to 
make  it  a  matter  of  doubt  whether  or  not  the  learner  will 
recognize  their  affinity;  under  such  circumstances  it  seems 
reasonable  to  give  the  learner  a  hint  which  may  perhaps  enable 
him  to  establish  many  other  similar  associations  which  would 
otherwise  have  escaped  his  notice.  Thus,  if  the  learner  fails 
to  see  that  German  zehn  is  cognate  with  English  ten,  a  state- 
ment of  the  correspondence  between  the  initial  consonants  in 
the  two  words  will  not  only  help  him  to  remember  zehn,  but  will 
also  enable  him  to  establish  an  association  between  German 
zeit  and  English  {noon)tide,  and  so  with  hundreds  of  other 
words.  But  there  is  alwTays  a  danger  of  going  too  far;  the 
teacher  must  be  careful  not  to  allow  himself  to  be  drawn  into 
an  elaborate  exposition  of  Grimm's  Law  or  any  other  philo- 
logical generalization  until  he  is  quite  sure  that  the  practical 
gain  will  outweigh  the  expenditure  of  time  and  trouble. 

In  most  cases  it  certainly  will  not.  Fifty  years  ago,  the 
main  laws  of  Aryan  and  Romance  etymology  could  be  tabulated 
in  a  brief  space  and  with  delusive  simplicity;  but  nowadays 
the  phonetic  changes  from  Latin  to  French  alone  can  hardly 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES   OF    METHOD  91 

be  mastered  even  by  specialists,  and  Grimm's  Law  has  been 
developed  and  subdivided  into  a  whole  series  of  laws  with 
endless  complications.  Under  these  circumstances,  the  dream 
of  making  comparative  philology  and  etymology  a  part  of 
ordinary  education  has  to  be  abandoned.  But  there  is  no 
great  harm  in  occasionally  introducing  scraps  of  comparative 
philology  into  elementary  books,  if  only  the  information  is 
correct — which  it  often  is  not. 

Chance  Resemblances  between  Languages 

Not  that  this  matters  much  from  a  practical  point  of  view ; 
for  it  often  happens  that  a  false  etymology  is  a  greater  help 
to  the  learner  than  the  correct  one.  Thus  every  beginner  in 
Greek  remembers  the  meaning  of  hblos  by  its  similarity  in  form 
to  the  English  whole,  while  its  real  affinity  with  the  Latin  salvits 
is  mastered  only  by  an  effort.  Such  accidental  resemblances 
are  instinctively  seized  on  by  the  beginner  as  the  natural  foun- 
dation of  his  new  vocabulary,  and  none  the  less  if  they  appeal 
only  to  his  sense  of  the  ludicrous  or  paradoxical,  as  when 
Hood  says  of  the  French  '  they  call  their  mothers  mares,  and 
all  their  daughters  fillies.'  A  Latin  primer  was  once  published 
in  which,  among  other  similar  suggestions,  the  learner  was  told 
to  remember  that  hasta  meant  '  spear '  by  thinking  of  the 
warning  not  to  be  hasty  with  it.  This  is  really  more  sensible 
than  giving  the  Sanskrit  cognate  form. 

These  chance  resemblances  are  especially  valuable  in  learn- 
ing remote  and  unconnected  languages,  where,  therefore,  there 
is  no  scope  for  comparative  philology,  and  where  the  new 
vocabulary  is  the  main  difficulty.  Thus  in  Arabic  it  is  some 
help  to  note  that  the  first  numeral,  wahid,  begins  with  the 
same  consonant  as  the  English  one,  and  that  the  seventh 
numeral  sab'  resembles  German  sieben.  So  also  in  learning 
Finnish  we  cannot  help  associating  poika,  'son,  boy,'  with 
English  boy,  whether  or  not  we  are  inclined  to  believe  in  any 
closer  connection  between  the  two  words. 

Borrowed  Words 

There  are  few  languages  of  any  degree  of  culture  from  which 
our  Western  languages  have  not  borrowed  to  some  extent.  At 
any  rate,  we  are  generally  familiar  with  some  of  the  proper 


92     THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

names  in  the  language.  In  the  case  of  Latin,  the  number  of 
borrowed  words  is  so  great  that  we  really  know  the  vocabulary 
beforehand.  English  gives  us,  too,  a  fairly  full  vocabulary  for 
Greek  also,  where  affinity  with  known  Latin  words  is  often  a 
further  help.  Of  the  remoter  languages,  Arabic  is  particularly 
well  represented  by  borrowed  words.  When  we  consider  the 
great  difficulty  of  the  Arabic  vocabulary,  it  is  a  pity  that  our 
elementary  text-books  do  not  make  a  systematic  use  of  this 
link  of  association.  Thus,  starting  from  salaam  -  Arabic  salam, 
originally  meaning  '  peace,'  we  get  to  the  verb  sa/im,  '  be  safe 
and  sound,'  whence  the  fourth  form  as/am  by  the  regular 
process  of  dropping  the  second  vowel  and  prefixing  a,  the 
meaning  being  '  give  oneself  up,  resign  oneself  (to  the  will  of 
God),  become  a  Mahommedan,'  whence  by  equally  regular 
changes  the  infinitive  islam,  '  true  faith,'  and  the  present  active 
participle  muslim, '  true  believer,'  while  in  the  name  Muhammad, 
'  praised  '  or  '  praiseworthy,'  we  have  the  corresponding  passive 
participle  of  the  second  class  of  verbs,  formed  by  doubling  the 
middle  consonant.  In  this  way  a  few  Arabic  loan-words  can 
teach  us  not  only  a  good  deal  of  the  vocabulary,  but  of  the 
grammar  as  well. 

So  also  in  Chinese,  if  we  bear  in  mind  that  the  native  forms 
of  Pekin  and  Nankin,  namely  pek  king  and  nam  king,  mean 
'  north  capital '  and  '  south  capital '  respectively,  and  that  kuarj 
tung,  the  native  name  of  Canton  and  the  province  in  which  it 
is  situated,  means  '  extensive  east,'  and  that  the  name  of  the 
neighbouring  province  kua-q  si  means  '  extensive  west,'  we 
have  a  memoria  technica  which  helps  us  to  recall  the  Chinese 
names  of  the  points  of  the  compass. 

The  associations  with  borrowed  words  have  this  great  advan- 
tage over  those  with  cognate  words  that  the  connection 
between  the  borrowed  word  and  its  original  form  is  generally 
simple  and  direct,  both  in  form  and  meaning.  Borrowed 
words  do  not  generally  require  any  Grimm's  Law  to  explain 
them.  If  they  are  disguised,  the  disguise  is  generally  a  simple 
one.  Thus  the  fact  that  Welsh  rhwyf, '  an  oar,'  is  the  borrowed 
Latin  renins,  though  not  self-evident,  is  soon  made  clear  by  a 
few  of  the  numerous  parallel  cases. 


CHAPTER  X 
SPECIAL    PRINCIPLES    OF   METHOD 

Rules ;   Mechanical  Isolation 

One  result  of  language  being  only  partly  rational  is  that  only 
part  of  it  can  be  brought  under  general  rules,  so  that  while 
some  linguistic  phenomena  can  be  learnt  by  bringing  a  number 
of  them  under  a  general  statement,  others  have  to  be  learnt 
disconnectedly,  one  by  one. 

With  those  that  can  be  brought  under  general  statements  or 
rules,  the  question  still  remains  to  be  answered  for  each  par- 
ticular fact  of  language,  Is  it  worth  while  referring  it  to  a  rule, 
or  is  it  better  to  learn  it  simply  as  an  isolated  fact  ? 

The  usefulness  of  a  rule  depends  :  (i)  on  its  extent — that  is, 
the  number  of  examples  included  under  it;  (2)  on  its  efficiency 
— that  is,  the  number  of  exceptions  it  has  to  admit,  the  rule 
that  has  the  fewest  exceptions  being  the  most  efficient ;  (3)  its 
definiteness,  clearness,  and  simplicity — that  is,  the  ease  with 
which  it  is  learnt  and  applied,  independently  of  its  extent  and 
efficiency.  Such  a  rule  as  that  for  the  formation  of  the  plural 
of  nouns  in  English  stands  high  in  all  three  respects  :  its 
meaning  and  scope  are  definite  and  clear,  and  its  extent  and 
efficiency  make  it  applicable  to  every  noun  in  the  language, 
with  few  exceptions.  A  still  more  perfect  rule  is  that  of  Latin 
grammar,  by  which  in  indirect  narration  finite  verbs  are  in  the 
subjunctive  mood. 

This  example  illustrates  the  fact  that  syntactical  rules  are, 
in  the  nature  of  things,  more  perfect  than  those  which  deal 
only  with  the  forms  of  words.  Many  syntactical  rules,  indeed, 
hardly  admit  of  exceptions ;  when  there  are  exceptions,  they 
are  the  result  of  crossing  by  other  syntactical  rules,  or,  at  any 
rate,  the  exceDtion  is  one   for  which  a  clear  reason  can  be 

93 


94    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

given.  Thus  in  Old  English,  where  the  verb  is  in  the  subjunc- 
tive in  indirect  narration,  as  in  Latin,  it  is  nevertheless  put  in 
the  indicative  in  such  a  sentence  as  I  zvish  to  say  that  I  am 
ready  to  start,  because  the  whole  sentence  practically  means  the 
same  as  the  direct  statement  /  am  ready  to  start,  the  clause  / 
wish  to  say  being  almost  an  '  empty  clause.'  The  subjunctive 
is  here  also  avoided  because  it  would  imply  that  the  speaker 
wished  to  make  a  false  statement. 

It  is  evident  that  our  first  two  criteria  balance  one  another 
to  some  extent.  If  a  rule  has  no  exceptions — or  none  but 
self-evident  and  necessary  exceptions — it  is  worth  learning, 
even  if  it  applies  to  only  a  few  words.  If  a  rule  covers  a  great 
many  words,  it  may  be  worth  while  learning  it  even  if  there  are 
a  good  many  exceptions.  The  exceptions  must  be  in  the 
minority  to  make  a  rule  worth  learning ;  if  the  regular  forms 
are  at  least  twice  as  numerous  as  the  exceptions,  then  the 
rule  is  generally  decidedly  worth  learning — that  is,  if  a  rule 
is  really  useful  or  necessary.  Thus,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter, 
the  genders  of  nouns  in  such  languages  as  French  and  German 
are  better  learnt  one  by  one  than  by  rule ;  hence  it  is  not 
worth  while  to  give  any  rules  for  gender  in  these  languages 
except  those  which  practically  admit  of  no  exception. 

All  rules  of  any  extent  have  this  great  utility,  that  they  tell 
us  how  far  the  analogy  of  the  form  we  are  dealing  with  extends. 
Thus  suppose  a  foreigner  began  the  study  of  English  with  the 
word-group  hands  and  feet,  or  men,  women,  and  children.  In  either 
case  he  would  be  puzzled  by  the  variety  of  plural-forms,  and 
would  instinctively  feel  a  wish  to  know  whether  any  one  of  these 
methods  of  forming  the  plural  predominated  in  the  language, 
and  if  so,  which.  The  answer,  '  the  regular  way  of  forming  the 
plural  of  nouns  is  shown  in  the  first  word ;  nearly  all  English 
nouns  form  their  plural  in  this  way ;  the  others  are  irregular 
forms  which  you  need  not  trouble  yourself  with  at  present,' 
gives  him  the  information  he  wants,  enabling  him  to  con- 
centrate his  attention  on  those  forms  which  he  can  associate 
together  by  bringing  them  under  a  simple  rule. 

Where  there  is  greater  complexity  and  irregularity,  we  may 
either  make  our  rules  correspondingly  elaborate,  adding  long 
lists  of  exceptions,  or  we  may  content  ourselves  with  giving 
only  those  rules  fully  which  are  most  efficient,  and  then  content 
ourselves  with  general  statements.  Thus  in  dealing  with  the 
complicated  noun-plurals  in  Welsh,  we  may  content  ourselves 


SPECIAL   PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD  95 

with  stating  that  Welsh  nouns  form  their  plurals  by  about 
a  dozen  vowel-changes  (da/ad,  '  sheep,'  plural  defaid),  and  by 
adding  various  endings  (pen,  '  head,'  plural  penau),  which  are 
sometimes  accompanied  by  vowel-changes  (wab,  '  son,'  plural 
meibion).  This  very  general  and  vague  rule  may  then  be  sup- 
plemented by  such  statements  as  that  the  most  frequent  endings 
are  -au,  -iau,  -on,  -ion  ;  that  the  ending  -od  is  used  chiefly  with 
names  of  animals  (Ihuynog,  '  fox,'  plural  llwynogod).  In  Arabic 
the  difficulty  of  bringing  the  plurals  under  simple  and  definite 
rules  is  still  greater. 

Under  such  circumstances  it  is  safest  to  err  on  the  side  of 
ignoring  rules  rather  than  that  of  elaborating  them.  The  beginner 
will  find  the  simple  mechanical  method  of  associating  each 
singular  form  with  its  plural  the  most  effectual :  that  is  to  say, 
he  must  repeat  such  pairs  as  dafad,  defaid,  till  one  form  instan- 
taneously recalls  the  other.  When  he  has  accumulated  a  stock 
of  examples  in  this  way,  he  will  then  be  able  to  derive  all  the 
more  benefit  from  learning  rules  of  increasing  elaborateness. 
So  also  with  grammatical  gender :  the  simplest  way  of  learning 
them  is  to  associate  each  noun  with  the  definite  article  or  any 
other  word  which  marks  the  gender.  Thus  the  learner  of 
German  who  has  learnt  to  repeat  das  haus,  '  house,'  hauser,  has 
a  practically  exhaustive  knowledge  of  the  word. 

There  are  other  considerations  by  which  the  choice  between 
the  method  of  rule  and  that  of  mechanical  isolation  is  guided. 
Such  plural  formations  as  those  of  Welsh  and  Arabic  are  very 
distinctive  :  they  are  full  and  sonorous,  and  make  a  strong 
impression  on  the  ear,  so  that  they  have  greater  individuality, 
and  consequently  are  easier  to  discriminate  and  retain  in  the 
memory.  But  in  a  language  such  as  German,  where  the  end- 
ings are  more  worn  away,  the  inflections  have  a  more  abstract 
character,  so  that  such  an  ending  as  -e,  though  frequently  used 
to  form  plurals,  does  not  in  itself  suggest  any  such  idea, 
because  it  is  used  for  a  great  variety  of  other  grammatical  pur- 
poses, besides  being  in  itself  of  little  phonetic  weight.  Hence 
German  plurals,  though  simpler  than  those  of  Welsh  and  Arabic, 
are  much  more  in  need  of  rules  to  prevent  otherwise  inevitable 
confusions. 

Again,  the  isolating  method  does  very  well  with  purely  formal 
distinctions  such  as  those  of  grammatical  gender,  because  these 
require  no  thought— nothing  but  a  mechanical  asssociation 
between  the  noun  and  certain  accompanying  words,  such  as  the 


g6     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

definite  article.  But  with  syntactical  rules  such  as  those  for 
the  use  of  the  subjunctive,  purely  mechanical  methods  are 
rarely  effective,  or,  indeed,  available  :  the  different  construc- 
tions can  only  be  discriminated  by  the  help  of  reason  and  logic. 
Hence  syntactical  rules  not  only  tell  us  how  far  the  analogy  of 
any  particular  construction  extends  (cf.  p.  94),  but  they  also 
save  us  the  labour  of  finding  out  for  ourselves  why  such  a  con- 
struction as  the  subjunctive  mood  is  used  in  any  particular 
sentence.  So  also  it  would  be  hopeless  to  try  to  master  the 
initial  mutations  in  modern  Welsh  without  knowing  the  rules 
which  govern  their  highly  abstract  and  varied  syntactical 
functions. 

We  see,  then,  that  the  syntax  is  the  most  important  part  of 
the  grammar,  and  that  it  requries  a  much  fuller  and  more 
detailed  treatment  than  the  accidence.  Fortunately,  too,  syntax 
lends  itself  to  such  a  treatment  more  easily  and  naturally  than 
accidence  does  (p.  93). 

We  are  now  able  to  answer  the  general  question,  Should 
languages  be  learnt  with  or  without  the  help  of  grammatical 
rules  ? 

The  tendency  among  reformers  now  is  to  revolt  against 
rules,  and  lay  stress  on  such  facts  as  that  '  we  learn  to  speak 
by  pattern  rather  than  by  rule'  (Paul,  89),  and  that  'we  learn 
living  languages  more  by  imitation  than  by  rules '  (Storm,  For- 
bedret  Undervisning,  20).  As  Storm  remarks,  '  those  who 
learn  such  a  language  as  French  mainly  from  grammars  are 
often  greeted  by  Frenchmen  with  the  remark,  "  What  you  say  is 
certainly  very  correct,  but  it  is  not  French  ! " ' 

But  it  must  be  remarked  that  such  results  are  generally  due 
not  to  using  grammars,  but  to  using  the  wrong  grammars — 
those  which  ignore  the  living  language  in  favour  of  the  old- 
fashioned  literary  form  of  it.  No  grammar  that  really  restricts 
itself  to  modern  French  can  possibly  teach  anything  that  is  not 
modern  French. 

It  is  true  that  we  can  often  dispense  with  rules  in  modern 
European  languages,  because  they  have  so  much  in  common 
grammatically  that  to  a  great  extent  we  know  their  grammar 
beforehand,  just  as  we  do  their  vocabulary.  Thus  any  one 
who  has  learnt  the  rules  for  the  subjunctive  in  Latin  or  German 
will  soon  pick  up  those  which  govern  its  use,  say,  in  Italian. 
Most  European  languages  show  a  certain  similarity  in   the 


SPECIAL   PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD  97 

construction  of  sentences  through  the  great  influence  Latin  has 
had  on  their  prose. 

Nevertheless,  while  admitting  the  importance  of  the  imitative 
principle,  we  must,  even  from  the  limited  point  of  view  of  the 
modern  European  languages,  add  that  '  rules  are  often  a  great 
help  ' — we  may  say  '  an  indispensable  help.'  Those  foreigners 
who  try  to  learn  the  English  verb  without  definite  rules  for  its 
modern  use,  generally  fail  to  master  its  delicate  syntactical 
distinctions. 

This  is  partly  because  English  lies  to  some  extent  off  the 
beaten  track  of  modern  European  linguistic  development. 
Hence  also  English  learners  are  at  a  disadvantage  when  they 
learn  one  of  the  ordinary  European  languages  :  grammatical 
gender,  the  subjunctive  mood,  the  accusative  case,  are  all 
novelties  to  them,  unless  they  are  already  familiarized  with 
them  from  Latin  grammar. 

In  remoter  languages  the  necessity  of  definite  rules  is  felt 
from  the  beginning.  We  can  pick  up  a  knowledge  of  Italian 
by  desultory  reading  of  the  Italian  New  Testament,  but  this 
method  would  break  down  with  such  a  language  as  Welsh, 
although  it,  too,  is  an  Aryan  language  :  no  ordinary  learner 
could  be  expected  to  find  out  for  himself  the  mutations  and 
the  different  uses  of  the  verb  '  to  be,'  or  the  principles  on 
which  the  various  equivalents  of  '  yes  '  are  formed — without  a 
detailed  grammatical  analysis  all  this  would  be  a  chaos  of 
apparently  arbitrary  distinctions. 

The  more  unfamiliar  the  language,  the  greater  the  amount 
of  grammatical  analysis  required,  and  the  more  elaborate  and 
detailed  it  must  be.  Old  English  differs  considerably  from 
modern  English  grammatically,  and  yet  I  have  in  my  First 
Steps  in  Anglo-Saxon  been  able  to  give  all  the  grammatical 
information  absolutely  required  by  the  beginner  in  25  pages, 
comprising  not  only  accidence  and  pronunciation,  but  also 
syntax  and  full  examples.  Even  the  much  fuller  grammar  in 
my  Anglo-Saxon  Primer  takes  up  only  54  pages.  Classical 
Chinese,  on  the  other  hand — a  language  which  has  no  acci- 
dence whatever,  in  which  nouns  have  not  even  a  plural,  and  in 
which  verbs  have  neither  person,  tense,  nor  mood  distinguished 
by  form — takes  up  84  pages  in  Gabelentz's  Anfangsgriinde  der 
chinesischcn  grammatik.  And  yet  the  most  thorough  knowledge 
of  this  book  will  not  enable  the  learner  to  read  a  single  line  of 
the  Chinese  classics  by  himself — so  great  are  the  difficulties  of 

H 


98    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

the  grammatical  construction  in  Chinese,  which  can  only  be 
overcome  by  long-continued  and  elaborate  syntactical  training 
carried  on  side  by  side  with  a  careful  study  of  the  texts. 

Analysis  and  Synthesis 

Although  language  is  made  up  of  words,  we  do  not  speak  in 
words,  but  in  sentences.     From  a  practical,  as  well  as  a  scien- 
tific, point  of  view,  the  sentence  is  the  unit  of  language,  not  the 
word.     From  a  purely  phonetic  point  of  view  words  do  not 
exist.     As  I  have  said  in  my  Primer  of  Phonetics  (p.  42),  '  No 
amount  of  study  of  the  sounds  only  of  a  sentence  will  enable 
us  to  recognize  the  individual  words  of  which  it  consists.     We 
may  write  down  every  sound,  every  shade  of  [phonetic]  syn- 
thesis, but  we  shall  never  be  able  to  analyse  the  sentence  into 
separate  words  till  we  know  its  meaning,  and  even  then  we 
shall  find  that  word-division  postulates  much  thought  and  com- 
parison of  sentences  one  with  another.'     Thus  the  sound-group 
(tela)  may  stand  for  the  single  word  teller  or  the  two  words  till 
her,  there  being  no  more  pause  between  the  words  of  a  sentence 
than  between  the  syllables  of  a  word.     In  French,  where  word- 
division  is  much  less  clearly  marked  by  stress  and  other  formal 
criteria  than  in  English,  it  is  still  more  difficult  to  mark  off  the 
divisions  of  words  by  ear  only.     Thus  the  title  of  Darmesteter's 
well-known  popular  book  on  etymology,  La  vie  dts  mots,  is  pro- 
nounced  (lavidemo)   with   practically  equal  stress  on  all  the 
vowels,  and  nothing  to  show,  as  in  English,  whether  the  internal 
consonants  form  groups  with  the  preceding  or  the  following 
vowel,  so  that  if  we  did  not  know  what  it  meant,  we  might 
transcribe  it  into  nomic  spelling  in  half  a  dozen  ways,  especially 
if  some  unknown  proper  name  entered  into  it :  la  vie  .  .  .  , 
I'avis  .  .  .  ,  Vavide  et  ......  .  des   mots,  .  .  .  d'e  maux, 

Lavy  .......  Manx,  .  .   .  Desmatix. 

We  see,  then,  that  there  are  two  ways  of  dealing  with 
languages:  (1)  the  synthetic,  which  starts  from  the  sentence; 
(2)  the  analytic,  which  starts  from  the  word. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  practical  study  of  language 
the  synthetic  method  implies  that  the  analysis  of  the  language 
is  not  carried  further  than,  at  the  most,  cutting  it  up  into 
sentences,  which  are  grasped  and  learnt  as  wholes,  instead  of 
being  separated  into  words,  and  put  together  like  pieces 
of  mosaic,  as  on  the  analytic  method. 


SPECIAL   PRINCIPLES   OF    METHOD 


99 


As  the  division  of  sentences  into  words  is  an  essential 
preliminary  to  grammatical  study,  the  synthetic  principle  is  as 
opposed  to  grammatical  analysis  as  it  is  to  the  analysis  of  a 
sentence  into  words. 

The  great  development  of  analytic  methods  in  modern  times 
is  partly  the  result  of  our  fixed  word-division  in  writing  and 
printing,  partly  of  the  increasing  elaboration  of  grammars 
and  dictionaries,  and  partly  of  the  growth  of  minute  scholar- 
ship, philology,  and  etymology. 

These  analytic  methods  are  often  carried  to  a  monstrous 
and  almost  incredible  extreme  in  the  historical  and  '  scientific ' 
study  of  dead  languages,  as  elaborated  in  Germany,  and  now 
being  imported  into  this  country.  On  this  system,  the  words 
of  an  Old  English  or  any  other  text  are  taken  word  by  word 
and  discussed  etymologically,  each  word  being  transliterated 
into  the  form  it  assumes,  or  ought  to  assume,  in  the  other 
cognate  languages.  The  result  of  such  a  method  is  that  the 
students  learn  a  good  deal  about  words,  but  nothing  about 
the  language  itself,  the  sense  of  whose  individuality  is  com- 
pletely lost  amid  the  chaos  of  conflicting  associations. 

Paradigms 

A  knowledge  of  the  grammar  by  no  means  necessarily 
implies  a  knowledge  of  the  language  itself :  the  grammar  with 
its  rules  and  paradigms  merely  gives  the  materials  for  acquiring 
that  knowledge.  The  schoolboy  who  has  learnt  his  tiipto, 
tupteis,  tiiptei,  t&ptomen,  tuptete,  tiiptousi  by  heart  has  simply 
established  a  series  of  external  associations  between  these  six 
words,  an  association  which  is  at  first  so  strong  that  he  is 
unable  to  get  to  his  tuptei  or  tiiptousi  without  repeating  all  its 
predecessors  in  order — an  association  of  which  the  actual 
language  knows  nothing.  It  is  not  till  such  a  context  as  '  the 
master  beats  the  boy  when  he  does  not  know  his  lesson '  lias 
been  learnt  in  Greek,  so  as  to  establish  an  instantaneous 
association  between  thought  and  sound,  that  any  real  know- 
ledge can  be  said  to  be  gained.  Nor  does  being  able  to  state 
that  lune  in  French  is  feminine  necessarily  imply  a  practical 
knowledge  of  its  gender.  When  the  student  has  learnt  to 
associats  lune  with  the  article  la  or  with  the  adjectives  belle, 
blanche,  he  really  knows  its  gender;  till  then  he  has  simply 
transferred    the  'lune,  subst.    fern.'   of  his   dictionary  to   his 


roo    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

own  memory,  and  has,  after  all,  only  facilitated  his  reference 
to  a  statement,  not  mastered  the  fact  it  involves.  In  the 
case  of  paradigms  such  as  tupto,  tupteis,  tuptei,  there  is  a 
certain  amount  of  natural  association  between  the  words — 
although  so  weak  that  we  can  scarcely  imagine  them  ever 
coming  together  in  one  sentence — and  this  is  one  of  the  justifi- 
cations of  the  practice  of  learning  paradigms.  But  there  is  no 
natural  association  between  lune  and  the  word  'feminine,'  or 
the  letters  s.f.,  or  with  printing  in  small  capitals — lune — as  has 
been  actually  proposed  as  a  means  of  learning  the  genders,  and 
consequently  these  associations  are  useless  ;  while  the  simple 
rule  of  never  repeating  lune  without  a  preceding  la  establishes  a 
natural  association,  and  at  the  same  time  gives  all  the  informa- 
tion contained  in  the  statement  that  the  word  is  feminine. 

Learning  Lists  of  Words 

The  worst  kind  of  isolation  is  to  begin  the  study  of  a 
language  by  learning  lists  of  words  by  heart :  '  if  I  learn  two 
hundred  words  a  day,  I  shall  have  a  perfect  knowledge  of 
German  in  a  fortnight.'  It  is  conceivable  that  there  may  be  a 
period  when  the  learner  finds  it  worth  while  to  sum  up  his 
knowledge  of  the  vocabulary  of  the  language  he  is  studying  by 
running  over  '  kopf  head,  auge  eye,  ohr  ear,'  and  so  on  ;  but  the 
beginner  is  not  concerned  with  isolated  words,  but  with  their 
combinations  into  natural  sentences  :  it  is  no  use  telling  him 
that  kopf  means  '  head '  when  he  wants  to  say  '  the  head '  or  to 
speak  of  '  heads ; '  nor  would  even  the  information  contained 
in  der  kopf  '  head,'  plural  kopfe,  be  of  any  use  to  him  till  he  had 
learnt  some  grammar,  which  again  implies  previous  text-reading. 

Detached  Sentences ;  Context 

As  already  remarked,  we  speak  in  sentences.  But  we  do 
not  generally  speak  in  detached  sentences ;  we  speak  in  con- 
catenations of  sentences.  In  ordinary  speech  sentences  are 
connected  together  in  the  form  of  a  dialogue,  which,  again, 
often  consists  of  an  alternation  of  questions  and  answers.  In 
books  sentences  are  joined  together  into  larger  groups  called 
paragraphs,  which  again  form  chapters,  which  again  constitute 
a  complete  connected  text. 

The  relations  between  sentences  and  texts  are  analogous  to 


SPECIAL  PRINCIPLES    OF    METHOD  101 

those  between  words  and  sentences :  both  are  relations  of 
context. 

Just  as  a  word  apart  from  its  context  may  be  ambiguous  both 
in  grammatical  form  and  in  meaning — for  even  in  Latin  we 
cannot  tell,  apart  from  the  context,  whether  boni  is  genitive 
singular  or  nominative  plural — so  also,  though  in  a  less  degree, 
the  grammatical  construction  or  the  meaning  of  a  sentence  may- 
be ambiguous  when  it  is  detached  from  its  context.  Hence,  also, 
the  meanings  of  words  are  brought  out  more  clearly  in  connected 
texts  than  in  detached  sentences. 

These  considerations  point  clearly  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
main  foundation  of  the  practical  study  of  language  should  be 
connected  texts,  whose  study  must,  of  course,  be  accompanied 
by  grammatical  analysis. 

But  in  a  grammar,  the  rules  must  be  illustrated  and  justified 
by  examples,  which  also  serve  to  strengthen  the  learner's  hold 
of  the  rule,  and  to  make  it  easier  for  him  to  recognize  the 
working  of  the  rule  in  the  texts  he  reads.  These  examples 
must  in  the  nature  of  things  be  detached  words  or  detached 
sentences. 

For  this  and  other  reasons  we  cannot  dispense  with  detached 
sentences.  But  we  must  be  careful  to  employ  as  far  as  possible 
only  those  sentences  which  will  really  bear  detaching.  Such 
a  sentence,  for  instance,  as  the  sun  rises  in  the  east  and  sets 
in  the  west  conveys  a  perfectly  definite  and  distinct  meaning, 
and  requires  no  further  context.  In  grammars  in  which  the 
examples  are  taken  from  the  higher  literature  we  often  meet 
sentences  which  are  almost  unintelligible. 

One  of  the  great  weaknesses  of  the  a  priori  methods  of  the 
Ollendorff  type  is  that  they  involve  the  substitution  of  detached 
sentences  for  connected  texts.  But  detached  sentences  are 
not  peculiar  to  these  methods.  They  are  the  natural  and 
inevitable  result  of  all  methods  which  make  the  grammar  the 
centre  of  instruction  instead  of  the  texts.  Widgery  remarks 
(p.  47),  quoting  partly  from  Perthes  : — 

'  Since  the  vain  attempt  to  teach  a  language  by  means  of 
short,  disconnected  sentences  was  introduced  into  Germany 
about  seventy  years  ago,  there  has  been  a  steady  rise  in  the 
number  of  hours  devoted  to  Latin,  but  the  results  are  not 
better,  nay,  they  are  worse.  After  the  French  Revolution  had 
given  the  death-blow  to  the  real  use  of  Latin  as  a  means  of 


io2     THE  PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

communication,  this  new  method  was  gradually  evolved  in  the 
hope  of  infusing  some  show  of  life  into  the  ghostly  dilettan- 
teism  of  "prose  composition,"  that  sickly  branch  of  study  kept 
alive  only  by  the  golden  sap  of  prizes  and  scholarships.' 

Storm  remarks  (Forbedret  Undervisning,  17)  with  special 
reference  to  modern  languages  :  '  It  is  but  little  relief  in  the 
study  of  a  difficult  grammar  to  have  to  ruminate  hour  after  hour 
dry,  detached  sentences  without  a  trace  of  connection,  indeed 
often  without  intelligible  meaning.'  He  then  gives  an  extract 
from  a  manual  of  French,  which  he  says  is  in  pretty  general 
use  in  Norway  :  The  more  merit  one  has,  the  more  modest  o?ie  is. 
Thy  sisters  ate  apples,  and  mine  ate  nuts.  Receive,  sir,  the 
assurance  of  my  high  respect.  These  (!)  threw  bombs  into  the 
fortress  in  order  to  compel  the  besieged  to  surrender.  Yield  to  his 
importunity,  if  you  do  ?iot  possess  enough  strength  to  make  a 
resistance.  As  he  remarks,  '  an  intelligent  pupil  will  ask,  Who 
are  these  ?  But  such  unintelligible  language  has  simply  a  stupe- 
fying effect  on  most  learners ;  the  meaning  is  entirely  lost  to 
them  ;  and  how  much  they  retain  of  the  French  form  it  is  not 
difficult  to  imagine.' 

In  that  form  of  the  Ollendorff  system  developed  by  Prender- 
gast  in  his  '  Mastery  Series,'  each  detached  sentence  is  regarded 
as  a  bag  into  which  is  crammed  as  much  grammatical  and 
lexical  information  as  it  will  hold.  The  following  are  examples 
of  this  '  sentence-cramming  '  method  as  applied  to  French  and 
German  : — 

1  Pourquoi  ne  voulez-vous  pas  me  faire  le  plaisir  de  passer 
avec  moi  demain  chez  le  frere  de  notre  ami  dans  la  rue  neuve  ? 

N'avez-vous  pas  besoin  d'aller  h.  Londres  aujourd'hui,  avant 
votre  promenade  du  matin,  chez  le  cordonnier  francais,  pout 
faire  elargir  vos  bottines  ? 

Dites  au  gargon,  je  vous  prie,  de  m'apporter  tous  les  jours 
sans  faute,  a  sept  heures  ou  plus  tot  s'il  peut,  un  pot  d'eau 
chaude,  une  tasse  de  cafe  au  lait,  et  mes  habits  bien  brosses. 

Savez-vous  comment  se  nomme  cette  vieille  dame  anglaise 
qui  demeure  pres  du  pont  neuf,  dans  la  meme  maison  ou  il  y  a 
une  famille  francaise,  et  un  jeune  ministre  allemand  ? 

J'ai  eu  pour  moins  de  deux  francs  dans  un  grand  magazin  de 
Paris  011  tout  se  vend  bon  marche,  du  papier  a  lettre  tres-beau, 
des  plumes  me'talliques  excellentes,  et  un  joli  petit  buvard. 


SPECIAL    PRINCIPLES   OF    METHOD  103 

Da  er,  der  junge  Freund  des  reichen  Marines,  dem  Diener 
den  Brief  nicht  hat  geben  wollen,  so  werden  Sie  mir  ihn  gleich 
holen  lassen  miissen. 

Wenn  der  alte  und  kluge  Lehrer  uns  den  guten  Rath  selbst 
gegeben  hatte,  wiirden  wir  diesen  grossen  Fehler  kaum  gemacht 
haben  konnen. 

Die  kleine  Freundin  der  schonen  Dame  liess  sich  die  neue 
Kutsche  nach  der  nachsten  Station  der  Eisenbahn  schicken, 
um  in  derselben  zu  der  Stadt  zu  fahren. 

Aber  endlich  schickte  die  Alte  aus,  und  bestellte  ihre  Kiste, 
weil  sie  die  Absicht  hatte,  die  schon  oft  vorgehabte  lange  Reise 
sobald  als  nur  moglich  zu  unternehmen. 

Ich  hore,  dass  das  schon  gestern  Morgen  friih  erwartete 
Schiff  selbst  heute  Abend,  wie  ich  glaube,  wegen  des  schlechten 
Wetters,  schwerlich  mehr  hier  ankommen  wird. 

Ein  dringender  Brief  eines  kranken  Geschaftsfreundes, 
welcher  mir  so  eben  gebracht  worden  ist,  nothigt  mich  zu 
einem  kurzen  Ausflug,  um  einen  keinen  Badeplatz  an  der 
Nordkiiste  von  Deutschland  zu  besuchen.' 

This  attempt  to  give  each  word  a  context  without  overstepping 
the  boundaries  of  a  single  sentence  must  be  pronounced  a 
failure.  The  sentences  are  quite  as  insipid  as  those  of  Ahn, 
and  even  more  unnatural  and  impossible ;  the  last  sentence  is 
practically  nonsense  as  it  stands.  The  construction  of  the 
German  sentences  is  stiff  to  the  last  degree ;  observe  the  repe- 
tition of  the  '  split  article '  construction  in  two  consecutive 
sentences  (the  fourth  and  the  fifth).  The  incessant  heaping  of 
epithets — 'the  young  friend  of  the  rich  man,  the  old  and  saga- 
cious teacher' — is  alone  enough  to  give  an  uncolloquial,  or 
rather  exaggeratedly  literary,  character  to  these  sentences  (p.  52). 

Association 

The  psychological  foundation  of  the  practical  study  of  lan- 
guages is  the  great  law  of  association,  to  which  we  have  fre- 
quently had  occasion  to  allude  already. 

The  whole  process  of  learning  a  language  is  one  of  forming 
associations.  When  we  learn  our  own  language,  we  associate 
words  and  sentences  with  thoughts,  ideas,  actions,  events. 

The  words  themselves  are  associated  into  groups  of  various 
kinds.  Thus  such  words  as  tree,  wood,  forest  form  an  associa- 
tion-group by  virtue  of  their  meaning ;  the  words  trees,  woods, 


104    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

forests  also  constitute  a  group  in  another  way,  namely,  by  all 
having  the  same  plural  inflection;  all  six  words,  lastly,  are 
associated  together  by  forming  part  of  the  grammatical  group 
'  nouns.'  These  groups  are  independent  of  any  linguistic  con- 
text :  even  if  we  never  met  tree  and  wood  associated  together  in 
one  sentence,  the  mind  would  still  pick  them  out  and  associate 
them  together  by  virtue  of  the  meaning  and  grammatical 
function  they  have  in  common.  These  groups  often  cross  one 
another  in  different  ways ;  thus  wooden  by  its  meaning  belongs 
to  the  preceding  group,  but  from  a  grammatical  point  of  view 
it  is  outside  it,  and  belongs  to  the  same  group  as  such  words  as 
good,  green.  These  associations  are  unconscious,  but  none  the 
less  real  :  every  speaker  of  English,  even  the  most  uneducated, 
knows  instinctively  what  a  noun  is.  The  sole  problem  of 
grammar  is  to  make  these  unconscious  associations  into  con- 
scious and  analytic  ones  by  defining  and  analyzing  them,  and 
stating  them  as  briefly  and  clearly  as  possible  by  means  of  a 
suitable  terminology. 

The  function  of  grammar  is,  therefore,  to  sum  up  the  associa- 
tions by  which  we  all  understand  and  speak  our  own  language 
as  well  as  any  foreign  languages  we  may  learn.  When  we  say 
that  certain  nouns  are  feminine  in  French,  we  mean  that  they 
are  associated  with  certain  forms  of  the  definite  article  and 
other  adjectives,  which  we  call  '  feminine,'  because  these  forms 
are  to  some  extent  also  associated  with  the  idea  of  the  feminine 
or  female  sex.  We  have  seen  that  the  practical  way  of  learning 
genders  is  to  start,  not  with  the  abstract  grammatical  statement, 
but  with  the  actual  associations  themselves. 

But  when  we  have  accumulated  in  our  memory  a  certain 
number  of  direct  associations  such  as  that  between  la  and  tune, 
maison,femme,  and  between  le  and  soleil,  garcon,  it  is  a  help  to 
have  all  these  associations  summed  up  in  a  brief  statement,  the 
more  so  as  some  of  the  associations  connected  with  gender  are 
complicated  and  contradictory.  Thus  the  learner  of  French 
finds  that  (la)  and  (bon)  are  regularly  associated  together  (la 
bon  itiezo),  while  (la)  is  generally  associated  with  (bo)  ;  he  is 
then  puzzled  to  find  the  collocation  (la  bon  om).  Here  the 
grammar  comes  in,  and  saves  him  the  trouble  of  collecting  a 
large  number  of  examples  and  comparing  them,  by  informing 
him  that  such  masculine  forms  as  (bo)  assume  the  feminine  form 
before  a  word  beginning  with  a  vowel. 


SPECIAL   PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD  105 

Unconscious  association  is  not,  as  we  have  seen,  necessarily 
dependent  on  the  actual  juxtapositions  which  occur  in  language 
itself :  there  is  a  real  unconscious  association  between  the  forms 
tupto,  tuptcis,  tiiptei,  between  see,  saw,  seen,  and  between  am,  is, 
are,  be,  in  spite  of  these  four  words  not  having  a  sound  in 
common ;  although,  as  these  forms  could  hardly  occur  together 
in  a  sentence,  the  association  is  not  so  strong  and  direct  as,  for 
instance,  between  la  and  maison  in  French.  But  they  may 
easily  be  associated  together  in  two  connected  sentences  ;  and 
such  a  dialogue  as  are  you  ready  ?  yes,  I  am  ready,  but  he  is 
not ;  he  will  soon  be  ready  though,  implies  a  definite  association 
between  the  four  verb-forms  that  occur  in  it ;  the  dialogue 
would,  indeed,  be  impossible  if  the  second  speaker  had  not  a 
clear  feeling  that  /  am  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  he  is  as  / 
see,  I  h:ar,  do  to  he  sees,  he  hears.  There  are  two  association- 
groups  connected  with  every  inflected  word  :  one  which  con- 
nects it  with  all  other  words  having  the  same  inflection,  as  in 
the  group  he  sees,  he  hears,  he  comes,  he  is  ;  another  which  groups 
together  all  the  inflections  of  the  same  word,  as  in  the  group  / 
see,  he  sees,  saw,  seen — am,  is,  was,  been,  be — tree,  trees — man, 
man's,  men,  men's.  So  also  there  are  groups  formed  by  deriva- 
tion and  other  formal  changes,  such  as  big,  bigger,  biggest — 
happy,  happily,  happiness,  unhappy,  which  again  involve  such 
groups  as  bigger,  stronger,  less — biggest,  least — happiness,  good- 
ness, unselfishness. 

This  is  an  additional  proof  of  the  utility  of  grammatical 
paradigms.  A  paradigm  of  the  Latin  declensions  is  simply  a 
brief  summary  of  these  unconscious  associations  which  we  have 
just  been  describing.  A  paradigm  is  useful  both  as  a  guide 
through  the  mazes  of  these  often  conflicting  associations,  and 
also  as  a  test  of  the  learner's  practical  mastery  of  them.  In  this 
way,  the  being  able  to  repeat  a  paradigm  by  heart,  useless  as  it 
would  be  to  the  beginner,  is  a  gain  to  the  more  advanced 
student,  for  it  strengthens  and  reduces  to  order  associations 
already  partially  formed — or,  at  any  rate,  prepared — by  a 
natural  process. 

The  following  are  the  main  axioms  of  the  principles  of 
association  : — 

(1)  Present  the  most  frequent  and  necessary  ele- 
ments first : 

The  first  associations  are  the  strongest,  because  they  are  the 


106    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

least  disturbed  by  conflicting  associations,  because  they  have 
the  longest  time  to  establish  themselves,  and  because  the 
greater  effort  required  in  mastering  the  first  elements  fixes 
them  more  strongly  in  the  mind.  It  is  evident  that  in  learning 
a  language  we  should  establish  the  strongest  associations  with 
— that  is,  we  should  begin  with — the  commonest  and  most 
necessary  words,  phrases,  idioms,  and  constructions  of  the 
ordinary  spoken  language  before  proceeding  to  the  vocabulary 
and  style  of  the  higher  literature. 

This  principle  has  been  well  illustrated  in  our  discussion  of 
the  relations  of  the  spoken  to  the  written  language  (p.  52), 
where  we  have  also  seen  its  importance  in  cases  where  cross- 
associations  arise.  When  a  foreigner  learns  archaic  literary  and 
modern  colloquial  English  simultaneously,  he  constantly  hesi- 
tates between  such  forms  as  he  hath  and  he  has,  quotha  and  he 
said.  But  if  he  first  forms  strong  associations  with  he  has  and 
he  said  exclusively,  he  can  then  form  weaker  secondary  associa- 
tions with  he  hath  and  quotha  without  much  fear  of  their  inter- 
fering with  the  primary  associations. 

(2)  Present  like  and  like  together,  and  then 

(3)  Contrast  like  with  unlike  till  all  sense  of  effort 
in  the  transition  ceases : 

Thus  in  learning  the  English  noun-plurals,  the  beginner  may 
have  the  regular  inflections  exhibited  in  a  variety  of  nouns. 
Then,  when  these  are  firmly  fixed  in  the  mind,  he  will  have 
the  mutation-plurals,  such  as  men,  geese,  brought  before  him  in 
a  group,  till  they  also  are  firmly  fixed  in  the  mind.  Lastly,  the 
regular  and  irregular  forms  may  be  contrasted  in  carefully 
selected  natural  collocations  such  as  hands  and  fed,  ducks  and 
geese,  men  and  animals,  till  not  only  the  sense  of  discontinuity 
of  association  is  overcome,  but  a  new  special  association  is 
formed  between  the  contrasted  words,  so  that  the  one  suggests 
the  other,  and  both  in  common  suggest,  and  are  suggested  by, 
the  idea  of  plurality.  It  is  to  be  understood  that  this  is  not 
intended  as  a  model  way  of  learning  English,  but  simply  as  an 
illustration  of  how  the  principle  of  association  works  under 
certain  given  conditions.  So  also  in  teaching  German,  it  is  a 
violation  of  the  principles  of  association  to  put  before  the 
beginner  such  a  contrast  as  that  between  der  band,  '  volume,' 
and  das  band,  '  ribbon ; '  these  words  ought  at  first  to  be  kept 
entirely  apart  and  mastered   separately,    each   in   its   natural 


SPECIAL   PRINCIPLES    OF    METHOD  107 

context.  But  when  they  have  been  learnt  in  this  way,  it  is  not 
only  allowable  but  advisable  to  confront  them,  and  call  the 
learner's  attention  to  the  difference  of  gender.  Otherwise  he 
might  be  tempted  to  transfer  the  gender  of  the  word  he  was 
more  familiar  with  to  the  less  familiar  one. 

(4)  Let  the  associations  be  as  definite  as  possible  : 

Thus  in  giving  examples  of  the  use  of  the  ablative  case  in 
Latin,  the  grammarian  should  be  careful  to  choose,  as  far  as 
possible,  sentences  containing  words  whose  ablative  case  is 
distinct  from  their  dative.  So  also  no  text  should  be  published 
for  beginners  without  full  phonetic  information  in  the  way  of 
quantity-marks,  stress-marks,  and  so  on,  in  addition  to  all  the 
helps  that  can  be  given  by  the  use  of  the  ordinary  marks  of 
punctuation,  the  use  of  italics,  etc. :  if  the  learner  of  Latin  were 
taught  from  the  beginning  to  recognize  the  distinction  between 
such  pairs  as  labor, '  labour,'  and  labor, '  I  slip,'  populus, '  people,' 
and  populus,  '  poplar  tree,'  by  eye  and  ear,  instead  of  having  to 
rely  entirely  on  the  context,  he  would  certainly  learn  to  under- 
stand Latin  quicker. 

The  common  practice  of  withholding  information  of  this 
kind  with  a  view  to  exercising  the  learner's  intellect  and  test- 
ing his  knowledge  is  an  example  of  the  violation  of  this  prin- 
ciple of  association.  Thus  in  text-books  of  Oriental  languages 
it  is  usual  to  give  transliterations  only  on  the  first  few  pages, 
not  to  mark  the  short  vowels  (in  Arabic)  after  a  certain  page, 
adding  them,  only  when  the  learner  is  supposed  to  want  them. 
But  as  no  one  can  possibly  tell  beforehand  the  weak  places  in 
another  person's  memory,  each  learner  complains  that  the 
information  he  wants  is  withheld,  and  that  which  he  does  not 
want  is  repeated  over  and  over  again.  Gabelentz,  in  his 
Chinese  grammars,  shows  his  practical  good  sense  by  invariably 
giving  transliterations  however  frequently  the  word  may  occur. 
It  is  a  pure  fallacy  to  imagine  that  withholding  information  and 
forcing  the  learner  either  to  guess  or  waste  time  in  seeking 
elsewhere  for  the  information  withheld  adds  to  his  knowledge : 
on  the  contrary,  it  not  only  puts  superfluous  mental  labour  on 
him,  but  also  weakens  his  associations,  and  leads  him  into 
inevitable  errors,  which  can  be  corrected  only  by  still  greater 
and  more  painful  efforts.  All  examination  and  testing  of 
knowledge  should  be  reserved  till  there  is  reasonable  ground 
for  supposing  that  the  learner  has  a  firm  grasp  of  the  subject. 


108     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

(5)  Let   the    associations    be  direct  and  concrete 
not  indirect  and  abstract : 

The  crude  form  system  (p.  87)  is  an  example  of  the  fallacious 
substitution  of  indirect  for  direct  associations  :  the  learner  has 
first  of  all  a  non-existent  crude  form  or  stem  presented  to  him, 
and  then  is  taught  how  to  deduce  from  it  the  actually  existing 
form  which  ought  to  have  been  presented  to  him  at  the  outset. 

All  associations  which  involve  remembering  a  certain  order 
— first  class,  second  declension,  third  conjugation— are  indirect, 
just  as  calling  a  certain  class  of  people  '  the  third  estate '  is  less 
direct  than  calling  them  '  the  commons,'  which  does  not  involve 
any  knowledge  of  what  the  other  two  estates  are,  and  what  the 
order  of  the  three  estates  is.  All  associations  of  order  should 
be  made  direct,  as  when  we  call  that  group  of  strong  verbs  to 
which  Old  English  ceosan  belongs  the  '  choose-class  '  instead  of 
expecting  the  learner  to  identify  it  by  remembering  its  order  in 
a  series.  The  objection  to  going  entirely  by  numbers  is  not 
only  that  it  is  difficult  to  remember  the  order,  but  also  that  all 
numbering  is  essentially  more  or  less  arbitrary,  so  that  there  is 
always  a  possibility  of  a  variety  of  orders.  Thus  in  my  arrange- 
ment, the  choose-class  is  the  seventh,  in  Germany  it  is  the 
second,  while  the  name  '  choose-class '  has  the  double  advantage 
of  conveying  information  instead  of  being  purely  negative,  and 
of  being  entirely  independent  of  any  changes  of  order. 

Of  course,  if  the  order  is  part  of  the  meaning  of  the  words, 
the  mere  repeating  of  them  in  their  order — which,  on  this 
supposition,  is  always  a  fixed  and  definite  one — does  establish 
a  direct  association  with  the  meaning  of  each  separate  word,  as 
when  we  repeat  one,  two,  three  .  .  .  ,  first,  second,  third  .  .  .  , 
Monday,  Tuesday,  Wednesday  .  .  . ,  October,  November,  December, 
January  .  .  .  ,  and  in  a  less  degree  in  such  groups  as  north 
and  south,  east  and  west,  and  men,  women,  and  children,  or  ladies 
and  gentlemen,  because  these  orders  may  differ  in  different 
languages.  Thus  in  Chinese  the  order  of  the  four  quarters  is 
nam,  pek,  si,  turj,  '  south,  north,  west,  east.'  The  order  in  such 
groups  is  very  strict  in  Chinese,  and  has  great  grammatical 
importance,  for  any  deviation  from  the  fixed  order  implies 
change  of  construction.  Thus  tsi'  niti ',  '  son  daughter,'  means 
'  sons  and  daughters '  on  the  principle  of  the  male  preceding 
the  female;  if  this  normal  order  is  inverted,  niu  ts'{,  the 
combination  becomes  attribute  +  noun  instead  of  being 
co-ordinate  :  =  '  female  child.' 


SPECIAL   PRINCIPLES   OF    METHOD  109 

As  a  further  illustration  of  the  distinction  between  direct 
and  indirect  associations,  if  we  wanted  to  distinguish  between 
the  two  Mills,  we  might  either  state  it  abstractly  by  saying  '  the 
elder  Mill's  christian  name  was  James ;  he  wrote  the  History 
of  British  India  and  .  .  .  the  younger  Mill's  christian  name 
was  John  Stuart ;  he  wrote  a  System  of  Logic  and  .  .  .,'  or  we 
might  simply  repeat  to  ourselves  '  James  Mill  history  of 
British  India,  John  Stuart  Mill  system  of  logic  .  .  .'  It  is 
evident  that  the  latter  method  would  establish  more  direct 
associations,  because  the  association  of  ideas  would  be  helped 
by  the  sounds  and  organic  formation  of  the  words  themselves. 
Such  mechanical  and  external  associations  are  of  the  greatest 
help  in  learning  languages. 

(6)  Avoid  conflicting  associations  (cross-associations) : 

Attempting  to  teach  a  language  through  its  nomic  form  and 
its  phonetic  transcription  simultaneously  would  be  an  example 
of  the  violation  of  this  principle.  It  also  involves  basing  the 
study  of  a  language  at  first  exclusively  on  one  definite  dialect 
and  period.  Thus  it  involves  not  beginning  to  read  Herodotus 
till  one  has  a  firm  grasp  of  Attic  Greek. 

A  striking  example  of  the  ill  effects  of  cross-associations  is 
afforded  by  the  gender-lists  which  figure  so  prominently  in  some 
French  and  German  grammars,  especially  the  older  ones.  In 
these  grammars  we  are  told  that  a  certain  ending  is  feminine 
except  in  four  words,  which  are  given  together  with,  perhaps, 
two  words  to  serve  as  examples  of  the  regular  feminine  gender. 
The  result  is  that  a  stronger  association  is  established  with  the 
irregular  than  with  the  regular  forms.  This  is  really  worse 
than  cross-association,  it  is  '  inverted  association.'  A  further 
objection  to  this  procedure  is  that  the  lists  of  exceptions  must 
either  comprise  a  large  number  of  rare  and  useless  words,  or 
else  be  incomplete  and  comparatively  useless,  for  it  is  impossible 
to  draw  any  definite  line  between  rare  and  frequent,  useful  and 
useless  words.  # 

It  is  to  be  remembered  that  this  axiom  is  only  meant  as  a 
protest  against  unnecessary  cross-associations  caused  by  defective 
methods  of  teaching  or  defective  statements  of  the  phenomena 
of  language.  Those  cross-associations  which  are  inevitable — 
that  is  to  say,  which  exist  already  in  language  itself,  are  dealt 
with  under  (3). 


no    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

Memory ;  Repetition 

The  next  problem  is,  how  best  to  retain  these  associations 
in  the  memory. 

As  even  the  strongest  associations  are  liable  to  be  weakened 
by  disuse  and  lapse  of  time,  the  principle  of  economy  is  all- 
important  :  that  is,  of  giving  the  learner  only  such  material  as 
he  wants  at  the  time  or  is  likely  to  want  within  a  short  period. 
Thus,  if  he  is  to  give  a  certain  time  to  reading  nothing  but 
Caesar's  Commentaries,  in  which  the  verb  occurs  only  in  the 
third  person,  it  is  evident  that  if  he  is  to  be  provided  with  a 
special  Latin  grammar-  for  that  purpose,  it  ought  to  exclude  the 
first  and  second  persons  of  the  verb.  In  the  German  grammar  I 
began  with  the  word  homung, '  February,'  was  given  as  an  excep- 
tion to  the  rule  that  nouns  in  -wig  are  feminine,  and  for  many 
years  no  German  word  was  more  familiar  to  me,  except  perhaps 
petschaft,  '  seal,'  whose  acquaintance  I  made  at  the  same  time 
and  in  the  same  way.  But  to  the  present  day  I  cannot  re- 
member having  met  with  either  of  them  in  any  Modern  German 
book,  still  less  of  ever  having  heard  them  in  conversation,  hornung 
being  now  entirely  obsolete  except  in  some  German  dialects. 
At  last,  when  I  began  Middle  High  German,  I  met  with  it  for 
the  first  time  in  my  life  in  a  poem  of  Walther  von  der  Vogel- 
weide,  but  by  this  time  I  had  forgotten  all  about  it,  and  so 
failed  to  recognize  it,  especially  as  it  appeared  in  the  slightly 
disguised  form  of  hornunc,  which,  I  know  not  why,  made  me 
guess  it  to  mean  '  hornet.'  I  am  glad  to  see  that  this  and 
other  words  of  a  similar  character  are  now  often  omited  from 
German  grammars. 

» Economy  teaches  us  to  begin  with  as  small  a  vocabulary  as 
p  Jssible,  and  to  master  that  vocabulary  thoroughly  before  pro- 
c  jpding  to  learn  new  words.  In  this,  and  in  many  other  ways, 
it  Confirms  the  general  principles  of  directness  and  simplicity. 

^Repetition  is  essential  both  for  forming  associations  and 
retaining  them  in  the  memory. 

It  is  an  additional  argument  for  working  as  long  as  possible 
with  a  limited  vocabulary,  for  the  smaller  the  vocabulary,  the 
greater  chance  the  different  words,  forms,  and  constructions 
have  of  being  repeated. 

But  there  is  a  point  beyond  which  repetition  becomes  wasteful 
— and  in  two  ways.     In  the  first  place,  the  excessive  repetition 


SPECIAL    PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD         in 

of  one  detail  hinders  the  due  repetition  of  other  details. 
Secondly,  such  excessive  repetition  is  wearying  to  the  learner, 
who  is  already  familiar  with  the  detail  in  question,  and  so  any 
further  repetition  of  it  causes  his  attention  to  flag.  This  is  the 
great  danger  of  using  grammatical  illustrations  made  on  the 
impulse  of  the  moment  by  the  writer  instead  of  being  collected 
from  a  variety  of  texts  by  different  authors.  In  such  illus- 
trations certain  words  and  constructions  tend  to  recur  with  a 
frequency  of  which  the  writer  is  unconscious  until  he  revises 
what  he  has  written  from  this  special  point  of  view.  He  will 
then  find  that  in  a  chapter  on  the  syntax  of  the  numerals  he 
has,  perhaps,  given  one  particular  numeral  five  times  as  often 
as  any  other,  and  has  omitted  to  give  any  examples  at  all  of 
some  of  them,  when  he  might  just  as  well  have  utilized  his 
sentences  to  give  each  of  the  more  important  numerals  a  fair 
proportion  of  examples. 

The  various  devices  of  artificial  memory  or  memoria  technica 
are  of  even  less  use  in  language  than  in  other  branches  01 
study.  The  whole  business  of  learning  languages  consists  in 
establishing  associations,  which  can  often  be  effected  only  by 
long-continued  effort.  It  is  therefore  a  waste  of  energy  to  take 
on  oneself  the  additional  burden  of  the  extraneous  associations 
by  which  an  artificial  memory  is  built  up. 

Such  devices  as  printing  feminine  nouns  in  a  dictionary  in 
capitals  are  liable  to  similar  objections,  and  are  quite  super- 
fluous (p.  ioo). 

Of  course,  if  extraneous  associations  come  unsought,  they 
should — and,  indeed,  inevitably  will — be  utilized,  as  in  the 
cases  already  discussed  under  the  head  of  '  accidental  resem- 
blances'  (p.  91).  But  most  of  these  are  not  strictly  parallel 
to  memoria  technica — at  least,  not  those  in  which  the  association 
between  the  two  words  is  direct,  as  in  hblos  =  whole,  and  does 
not  require  the  introduction  of  a  third  element. 

Some  of  the  methods  recommended  under  the  head  of 
'  nomic  pronunciation '  (p.  34)  have  also  a  resemblance  to 
memoria  technica,  but  they  are  simply  cases  of  the  modification 
of  the  materials  of  existing  associations. 

Learning  by  heart  should  not  be  attempted  till  the  piece  has 
been  thoroughly  studied  from  all  sides.  To  learn  a  piece  by 
heart  before  it  has  been  properly  studied  and  grammatically 


ii2     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

analyzed  is  often  rather  injurious  than  otherwise,  as  it  tends  to 
take  away  the  sense  of  interest  and  freshness,  and  to  deaden 
and  blunt  the  observing  faculties. 

Besides,  by  the  time  the  piece  has  been  thoroughly  studied, 
the  knowledge  implied  in  learning  by  heart  will  have  come  of 
itself  if  the  learner  has  a  fairly  good  memory.  If  he  has  not, 
learning  by  heart  is  simply  a  waste  of  time.  If  he  cannot 
retain  in  his  memory  even  a  short,  simple  poem  in  his  own 
language,  he  cannot  be  expected  to  learn  by  heart  in  a  foreign 
language ;  and  if  he  can  learn  his  own  language  by  imitation 
and  reproduction  after  a  pattern  without  learning  by  heart,  he 
can  do  the  same  with  a  foreign  language. 

Interest 

Memory  depends  also  on  attention,  and  this  partly  on  the 
interest  taken  in  the  subject.  If  we  take  no  interest  either 
in  the  language  itself  or  the  text  we  are  reading,  our  attention 
inevitably  flags.  The  genuine  linguist,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
only  stimulated  all  the  more  by  difficulties.  Oriental  languages 
are  more  difficult  than  European  languages,  but  they  have  the 
charm  of  remoteness  and  complete  novelty,  and  stimulate 
curiosity  and  interest  to  the  highest  degree,  so  that  in  learning 
them  we  endure  drudgery  which  would  seem  intolerable  if 
spent  on  a  comparatively  insipid  Romance  language,  which 
we  half  know  beforehand. 

But  we  must  be  careful  not  to  confuse  interest  in  the  litera- 
ture with  interest  in  the  language.  An  absorbing  interest  in 
what  we  are  reading,  speaking,  or  hearing,  so  far  from  helping 
us  to  remember  and  observe  the  phenomena  of  the  language, 
has  the  opposite  effect.  If  the  reader  is  '  panting  to  arrive  at 
the  thrilling  denouement '  of  a  sensational  novel,  he  is  certainly 
not  in  the  mood  for  observing  niceties  of  syntax. 

Another  difficulty  is  that  the  unfamiliar  is  what  is  interesting, 
while  all  sound  principles  of  linguistic  study  tell  us  that  we 
ought  to  begin  with  the  expression  of  those  ideas  and  the 
descriptions  of  those  things  and  circumstances  which  are  most 
familiar  to  us,  or  will  be  so  when  we  have  acquired  the 
language.  In  learning  French  we  ought  to  begin  with  what 
is  common  to  both  France  and  England,  French  and  English 
life,  and  when  we  pass  beyond  English  associations,  to  be 
initiated   gradually   into    French   ones :    we   do   not   wish  to 


SPECIAL   PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD  113 

accompany  Jules  Verne  into  the  heart  of  Africa.  Nor  will 
reading  about  exciting  adventures  of  Englishmen  in  New 
Guinea  give  a  foreigner  a  good  vocabulary  for  a  visit  to 
London. 

Then,  again,  all  reading  that  is  profitable  from  a  linguistic 
point  of  view  must  at  first  be  very  slow,  and  interrupted  by 
incessant  repetitions ;  and  no  text  can  be  very  interesting  under 
these  conditions. 

If  the  learner  is  interested  in  the  language  itself,  that  is 
enough.  If  he  has  a  strong  motive  for  learning  the  language 
as  quickly  as  possible  as  a  means  to  an  end,  or  simply  because 
he  wants  to  get  through  the  drudgery  as  quickly  as  possible, 
he  will  regard  those  texts  as  most  satisfactory  which  bring  him 
to  the  goal  with  the  greatest  ease  and  quickness ;  that  is,  he 
will  prefer  texts  in  which  the  meanings  of  words  and  their 
constructions  unfold  themselves  easily  from  a  simple  context 
of  progressive  difficulty,  in  which  there  is  repetition  enough 
to  help  the  memory,  and  yet  variety  enough  to  keep  the 
attention  on  the  alert.  He  will  prefer  such  texts  as  long  as 
they  are  not  ostentatiously  trivial  and  vulgar,  to  more  interest- 
ing ones  with  which  he  feels  he  is  not  making  the  same 
linguistic  progress.  If  he  has  to  choose  between  an  anecdote 
of  a  Lacedemonian  and  an  Athenian,  a  fable  about  a  fox  and 
a  goat,  a  funny  story  about  a  red  rose,  '  Twinkle,  twinkle,  little 
star,'  and  a  description  of  the  furniture  of  a  drawing-room,  he 
may  possibly  choose  the  latter  for  a  variety  of  reasons  :  because 
he  knows  the  anecdotes  already,  because  he  does  not  care  for 
poetry,  but  mainly  because  he  thinks  the  description  of  a 
drawing-room  may  teach  him  some  words  which  he  cannot  find 
explained  in  his  dictionary,  and  which  may  be  useful  to  him 
when  he  visits  the  country  itself. 

The  Gouin-method  is  a  good  instance  of  the  '  interest-fallacy.' 
According  to  Gouin  himself,  his  series-method  was  first  sug- 
gested to  him  by  observing  a  nephew  of  his,  who,  after  seeing 
a  mill  for  the  first  time,  began  to  play  at  being  a  miller,  talking 
all  the  time  to  himself,  '  First  I  fill  the  sack  with  corn — then 
I  put  it  on  my  back  and  carry  it  to  the  mill  .  .  .  the  water 
falls  on  the  mill-wheel,  and  the  wheel  goes  round-  the  wheel 
turns  the  millstone — the  millstone  grinds  the  corn,'  and  so  on. 
Gouin  fails  to  see  that  there  is  a  wide  difference  between 
taking  a  lively  interest  in  a  novelty  and  being  interested  in  the 

1 


ii4    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

vocabulary  connected  with  the  object  after  it  has  ceased  to  be 
a  novelty.  Even  while  the  child  was  playing  at  being  a  miller, 
its  interest  was  not  in  the  words,  but  in  what  the  words  ex- 
pressed :  the  attitude  of  its  mind  was  that  of  the  absorbed  novel- 
reader.  We  know  how  soon  the  child's  mind  tires  of  any  one 
object  of  interest ;  and  we  may  be  sure  that  if  a  year  afterwards 
M.  Gouin's  nephew  had  had  to  go  through  the  same  mill-series 
in  a  foreign  language,  the  old  interest  would  not  have  been 
forthcoming,  and  the  youth  would  perhaps  have  declined  to 
take  part  in  any  series  in  which  tin  soldiers  and  a  popgun  did 
not  figure.  If  the  old  interest  had  been  forthcoming,  it  would 
have  been  as  much  a  hindrance  to  mastering  the  details  of  the 
foreign  language  as  in  the  case  of  the  novel-reader.  Besides, 
all  children  are  not  equally  interested  in  the  construction  of 
a  mill,  even  when  it  is  a  novelty;  and  certainly  some  of  the 
series,  such  as  that  which  gives  a  detailed  description  of 
opening  and  shutting  a  door — '  I  walk  towards  the  door,  I 
approach  the  door,  I  approach  nearer,  I  approach  nearer  still, 
I  put  out  my  arm,  I  take  hold  of  the  handle ' — are  as  uninterest- 
ing as  they  are  useless. 

As  I  have  indicated  already,  the  only  safe  concessions  that 
can  be  made  to  interest  are  negative :  be  dull  and  common- 
place, but  not  too  much  so. 

Thus,  although  repetition  is  essential,  there  are  some  kinds 
of  repetition  which  are  so  wearisome  to  the  learner  that  they 
can  hardly  be  used  in  teaching,  in  spite  of  certain  special 
advantages  they  possess.  I  mean  such  methods  as  that  of 
repeating  a  long  Latin  speech  in  oratio  obliqtia  in  order  to 
show  the  accompanying  changes  of  construction,  or  of  con- 
jugating a  whole  sentence  through  a  variety  of  moods  and 
tenses.  It  is  strange  that  Gouin,  who  attaches  so  much  impor- 
tance to  stimulating  the  pupil's  interest  in  the  subject-matter, 
should  advocate  teaching  the  verb  by  means  of  such  repetitions 
as  these :  '  To-day  the  postman  will  come  before  we  have 
breakfast — while  we  are  at  breakfast — after  we  have  had  break- 
fast. Yesterday  the  postman  came  before  we  had  breakfast 
.  .  .  to-morrow  the  postman  will  come  before  we  have  break- 
fast .  .  .'  Such  methods  should  only  be  used  occasionally  in 
the  grammar,  not  made  a  standing  feature  of  the  method. 


SPECIAL   PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD  115 

Relations  between  Texts,   Grammar,  and 

Vocabulary 

We  have  seen  that  the  traditional  division  of  the  materials 
and  apparatus  for  the  practical  study  of  languages  into 

(1)  Connected  texts — the  reader, 

(2)  Grammar, 

(3)  Dictionary,  vocabulary, 

is  founded  on  the  nature  of  things.     We  now  have  to  consider 
the  relations  between  these  three. 

We  have  already  come — either  expressly  or  tacitly — to  the 
following  conclusions  on  this  subject  :  that  the  beginner's 
grammar  ought  to  deal  only  with  the  inflections  and  construc- 
tions which  actually  occur  in  the  texts  he  is  reading,  and  that 
the  dictionary — if  a  dictionary  is  used  at  all — ought  to  take  the 
form  of  a  special  glossary  to  those  texts.  My  Anglo-Saxon 
Primer  is  a  simple  typical  example  of  this  threefold  division  in 
a  single  book. 

Deducing  Grammar  from  Texts. — But  some  reformers 
go  further  than  this.  Some  of  them  go  so  far  as  to  abolish 
grammar  altogether,  at  least  in  the  elementary  stages,  and  train 
the  pupils  to  deduce  the  laws  of  the  language — the  rules  of 
grammar — from  the  texts  they  are  reading. 

An  obvious  objection  to  this  plan  is  the  time  it  would  take. 
The  most  practical  way  of  collecting  materials  for  grammatical 
investigations  is  to  write  each  quotation  on  a  separate  slip  of 
paper,  adding  the  necessary  headings,  arid  then  to  sort  the  slips 
under  these  headings.  I  am  told  that  the  great  English  lexico- 
graphers of  the  present  day  look  down  with  contempt  on  any- 
thing less  than  a  ton  of  such  materials  ;  but  I  am  sure  that  by 
the  time  the  boys  had  sorted  a  hundredweight  or  so  of  slips, 
they  would  have  had  enough  of  it ;  and  by  the  time  the  master 
had  gone  over  the  work  of  a  biggish  class  of  boys,  he  would 
have  had  enough  of  it  too,  and  would  perhaps  welcome  the 
suggestion  of  one  of  the  German  reformers,  namely,  that  of 
using  copybooks  with  printed  headings  and  blank  spaces  to 
enter  the  quotations  in.  But  even  when  all  the  boys'  mistakes 
had  been  corrected,  the  material  would  still  be  defective,  and 
would  require  to  be  supplemented  from  other  texts.  To  make 
a  long  story  short — the  master  would  find  it  best  in  the  end  to 


n6     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

do  the  work  himself;  and  at  last,  perhaps,  a  happy  thought 
would  dawn  on  him  :  Why  not  print  the  whole  thing  ?  The 
book  would  be  useful  to  other  teachers,  and  it  might  pay. 
When  the  book  was  published,  the  author  would  discover  to 
his  astonishment  that  the  result  was  nothing  more  or  less  than 
an  ordinary  grammar. 

These  considerations  show  that  this  method  would  be  a 
failure,  if  carried  out  on  any  large  scale.  It  would  involve 
great  waste  of  time  and  effort  as  compared  with  the  ordinary 
grammatical  methods.  And  there  would  be  a  sense  of  unreality 
about  it :  teachers  and  pupils  alike  would  feel  that  they  were 
only  playing  at  grammar — pretending  that  they  had  to  make 
their  own  grammar,  while  they  knew  perfectly  well  that  the 
work  had  been  done  for  them  long  ago,  and  that  the  results 
were  accessible  in  hundreds  of  grammars  of  every  degree  of 
elaborateness.  This  method  of  '  inventional  grammar '  would 
be  highly  useful  as  an  occasional  stimulus  and  exercise  for  the 
pupils,  but  there  its  legitimate  sphere  of  usefulness  would  end. 

Such  inventional  methods — of  which  Spencer's  Inventional 
Geometry  is  a  good  type — have  often  been  tried  in  various 
branches  of  education.  There  is  certainly  something  plausible 
in  the  idea  of  making  the  learner's  progress  consist  in  finding 
out  by  himself  the  solution  of  a  series  of  problems  of  progressive 
difficulty  and  perplexity,  till  at  last  he  stands  on  the  highest 
pinnacle  of  knowledge  with  the  proud  consciousness  of  having 
arrived  there  entirely  by  his  own  efforts.  But  although  these 
inventional  methods  excite  great  interest  at  first  in  the  minds  of 
the  more  gifted  pupils,  those  who  are  less  original  and  slower 
in  mind  instinctively  rebel  against  them,  and  all,  sooner  or 
later,  get  tired  of  their  sham  originality. 

As  regards  the  difficulty  of  the  problems  or  other  work 
involved  in  inventional  methods,  if  we  look  at  the  question 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  average  learner,  we  have  to  face 
this  dilemma  :  if  the  work  really  requires  much  thought  or 
originality  of  mind,  it  will  be  too  difficult  for  them,  or,  at  any 
rate,  will  cause  them  to  make  so  many  mistakes  that  the  labour 
of  establishing  correct  associations  will  be  far  greater  than  it  is 
worth ;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  work  is  so  easy  as  not  to  tax 
the  intellectual  powers  of  the  pupils,  it  will  cease  to  excite  their 
interest. 

But  there  is  a  method  allied  to  the  inventional  which  may 


SPECIAL   PRINCIPLES  OF   METHOD  117 

form  an  integral  part  of  a  systematic  course  of  linguistic  study — 
that  is,  the  method  of  inductive  grammar. 

It  is  only  the  fully  developed  mind  of  the  adult  that  can 
plunge  straight  into  the  study  of  the  grammar  of  a  foreign 
language.  A  less  developed  mind,  one  which  is  less  used  to 
dealing  with  general  and  abstract  statements,  requires  to  start 
with  something  more  individual  and  concrete.  There  is,  besides, 
as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  a  pre-grammatical  stage  in  every 
progressive  course  of  linguistic  study — whether  for  children  or 
adults — in  which  no  grammar  is  taught,  but  only  the  materials 
on  which  grammar  is  based,  that  is,  sentences  and  short  texts. 
In  the  case  of  very  young  children,  the  pre-grammatical  stage 
is,  indeed,  the  only  one  suitable  for  their  intelligences. 

Now,  although  the  grammar  is  rightly  banished  from  this 
stage,  it  is  possible  to  familiarize  the  pupils  with  some  of  its 
principles  almost  from  the  beginning,  that  is,  as  soon  as  they 
have  read  or  heard  enough  to  furnish  a  few  examples  of  some 
grammatical  category.  Thus,  as  soon  as  they  have  met  with 
three  or  four  examples  of  a  certain  case  or  other  inflection,  the 
teacher  calls  their  attention  to  this  category  by  writing  the 
words  containing  that  inflection  on  the  blackboard,  and  making 
them  see  what  these  words  have  in  common,  as  far  as  is 
possible  without  using  any  technical  or  abstract  terminology. 
In  the  same  way  he  can  collect  together  on  the  blackboard 
from  the  texts  already  read  the  scattered  words  which  make  up 
such  a  paradigm  as  /  am,  you  are,  he  is.  When  this  has  gone 
on  for  some  time,  the  teacher  may  expect  the  pupils  to  find 
out  for  themselves  what  grammatical  category  a  word  belongs 
to.  This,  then,  is  the  deductive  method  of  teaching  grammar, 
or  rather  of  preparing  for  the  systematic  study  of  grammar.  It 
is  capable  of  various  stages  of  development,  according  to  the 
mental  development  of  the  pupils,  according  as  the  grammatical 
categories  are  left  undefined,  or  are  stated  explicitly  in  more 
or  less  technical  and  abstract  language.  As  already  remarked, 
there  will  be  no  harm  in  varying  the  course  of  inductive 
grammar  by  an  occasional  application  of  the  inventive  method 
— letting  the  pupils  find  out  some  of  the  categories  by  them- 
selves— although,  for  the  reasons  already  given,  this  ought  not 
to  be  made  an  integral  part  of  the  course. 

After  all,  the  main  thing  is  that  the  texts  and  the  grammar 
should  be  intimately  associated,  and  studied  as  much  as  possible 
simultaneously — the  exact  order  is  generally  of  less  importance. 


n8     THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 


Stages  of  Progressive  Method  :   Irregularities 

I  will  now  give  a  general  sketch  of  a  rationally  progressive 
method  of  linguistic  study  on  the  principles  already  discussed. 

The  complete  course  may  be  divided  into  five  stages  :  ( x ) 
the  mechanical ;  (2)  the  grammatical ;  (3)  the  idiomatic  and 
lexical  (dealing  with  the  vocabulary  of  the  colloquial  language) ; 
(4)  the  literary ;  (5)  the  archaic. 

(1)  The  first  stage,  the  mechanical,  begins  with  a  thorough 
mastery  of  the  pronunciation  of  the  language  which  is  being 
learnt,  which  presupposes  a  general  practical  knowledge  of 
phonetics  based  on  the  sounds  of  the  learner's  own  language. 
Every  sentence  must  be  practised  till  it  runs  glibly  off  the 
tongue  without  effort  or  hesitation.  Even  with  a  thorough 
preliminary  training  in  phonetics,  this  will  take  long  practice  at 
first,  until  the  learner  is  familiar  with  the  organic  basis  of  the 
language.  The  result  will  be  that  at  first  everything  will 
practically  be  learnt  by  heart.  Hence  the  importance  of  care- 
fully choosing  the  most  instructive  words  and  sentences  for 
these  phonetic  exercises,  and  of  associating  every  word  and 
sentence  with  its  exact  meaning — in  the  case  of  sentences  by 
means  of  idiomatic  translations,  together  with  a  translation  of 
each  word  separately. 

As  the  energies  of  the  pupil  will  be  mainly  taken  up  by 
phonetic  difficulties — especially  if  his  previous  phonetic  training 
is  either  defective  or  altogether  wanting — there  will  be  no  time 
for  grammatical  analysis.  Even  the  analysis  into  separate 
words  need  not  be  carried  farther  than  the  translation  of  the 
'  full  words,'  the  meaning  of  the  form-words — the  prepositions 
and  other  particles — being  left  to  be  gathered  from  the  context. 
Such  idioms  as  how  do  you  do  ?  in  which  words  are  used  in 
special  meanings  which  they  do  not  otherwise  have,  might  also 
be  left  unanalyzed — partially  at  least.  But  it  would  be  advis- 
able, perhaps,  to  exclude  such  idioms  from  the  first  stage.  To 
omit  word  for  word  translation  altogether  would  be  carrying 
the  mechanical  principle  to  an  irrational  extreme  :  we  do  not 
wish  our  pupils  to  fall  into  the  error  of  the  student  who  was 
being  examined  in  the  Greek  Testament,  and  after  translating 
neos  oinos  correctly  as  '  new  wine,'  was  asked  '  which  is  new 
and  which  is  wine,'  whereupon,  suspecting  a  trap,  and  distrusting 


SPECIAL   PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD  119 

the  similarity  between  the  Greek  and  the  English  forms  of  the 
words,  he  answered  '  n'eos  wine,  obws  new.' 

Irregularities. — The  phonetic  exercises  should,  as  already 
implied,  include  some  of  the  most  necessary  and  frequent 
elements  of  the  grammar  and  vocabulary,  and,  perhaps,  some 
of  the  most  indispensable  idioms.  In  this  way  many  of  the 
irregularities  could  be  learnt  in  this  stage,  and  they  would  be 
learnt  without  effort,  for  the  learner  would  not  know  that  they 
were  irregularities.  Thus  to  a  foreign  beginner  who  has  not 
learnt  any  English  grammar,  the  regular  singular  feat  and  the 
irregular  plural  feet  are  on  exactly  the  same  level  -  they  are 
purely  phonetic  difficulties,  the  difficulties  being  identical  in 
both — and  it  is  not  till  he  learns  the  grammar  that  such  a 
collocation  as  hands  and  feet  causes  any  hesitation  through 
associations  which  tend  to  make  him  change  it  into  hands  and 
foots.  It  is  indeed  possible  thai  foots  is  more  difficult  to  him 
Xbanfeet — of  course  on  phonetic  grounds. 

This  would  be  the  solution  of  what  from  a  strictly  grammatical 
point  of  view  is  an  insoluble  dilemma.  The  dilemma  is  this  : 
the  irregular  forms  are  the  most  frequent,  and  should  therefore 
be  learnt  first ;  but  in  the  grammar  the  irregular  forms  must 
necessarily  be  subordinated  to  the  regular  ones.  The  answer 
is,  as  we  see,  that  irregularities  are  psychological,  not  mechanical 
difficulties,  and  should  therefore  be  mastered  in  the  mechanical 
stage. 

When  some  progress  has  been  made  in  the  first  stage,  the 
learner  may  be  allowed  to  read  short  texts  of  the  simplest 
character — still  without  any  grammatical  analysis. 

The  time  spent  on  the  first  stage  will  depend  on  the  confor- 
mation of  the  learner's  mind.  If  his  mind  is  mature  and  quick 
to  grasp  general  principles,  he  will  remain  in  this  stage  only  as 
long  as  is  necessary  to  give  him  a  thorough  command  of  the 
pronunciation,  which,  again,  will  depend  partly  on  his  natural 
aptitude  for  phonetics,  partly  on  the  degree  of  training  he  has 
had  in  practical  phonetics. 

In  the  case  of  immature  or  slow  minds  the  first  stage  may  be 
indefinitely  prolonged.  The  more  it  is  prolonged,  the  more 
will  phonetic  considerations  be  subordinated  to  those  of 
grammatical  structure  and  the  acquisition  of  a  useful  vocabu- 
lary, so  that  the  texts  will  become  longer  and  more  varied,  and 


iso    THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

the  method  of  grammatical  induction  will  be  more  and  more 
applied. 

(2)  The  grammatical  stage.  It  is  evident  from  what  has 
been  said  that  the  transition  from  the  first  to  the  second  stage 
may  be  either  quick  and  abrupt  or  slow  and  gradual,  and  that 
the  two  stages  may  overlap  in  various  ways. 

This  second  stage  presupposes  a  thorough  mastery  of  the 
pronunciation  and  the  acquisition  of  a  certain  amount  of 
materials  for  grammatical  study  in  the  shape  of  words,  sentences, 
and  texts  whose  meanings  are  known.  What  further  preparation 
for  grammatical  analysis  has  been  made  will  depend  on  the 
length  and  character  of  the  first  stage 

In  this  stage  the  texts  will  be  so  chosen  as  to  embody  the 
different  grammatical  categories  in  progressive  order  of  difficulty 
as  far  as  is  compatible  with  employing  genuine  texts  which 
reproduce  the  actual  language.  The  texts  will  naturally 
become  longer  and  less  simple  in  style  and  subject,  and  will 
embody  a  more  and  more  extensive  vocabulary.  But  as  the 
vocabulary  is  in  this  stage  entirely  subordinated  to  the  grammar, 
there  will  be  no  attempt  to  develope  the  vocabulary  systemati- 
cally. It  will  be  taken  into  account  only  from  the  negative 
point  of  view  of  keeping  out  rare  and  superfluous  elements, 
and  using  as  small  a  vocabulary  as  is  consistent  with  general 
efficiency. 

In  most  cases  the  grammatical  training  will  consist  in  a 
gradual  expansion  of  the  deductive  method,  till  the  learner  is 
able  to  read  with  profit  a  grammar  founded  on  the  texts  he  is 
studying  together  with  those  he  has  learnt  in  the  first  stage. 
When  he  has  gone  through  his  first  grammar,  he  will  begin 
again  at  the  beginning  and  revise  all  the  texts  in  the  first  stage 
from  a  grammatical  point  of  view. 

The  study  of  grammar  is  not  confined  to  the  second  stage, 
but  is  necessarily  continued  through  all  the  following  stages. 
At  the  end  of  the  second  stage  the  learner  will  be  able  to  read 
a  general  grammar — one  that  takes  its  material  from  the  whole 
of  the  language,  not  merely  from  the  texts  already  read — but 
this  grammar  will  necessarily  deal  only  with  the  modern 
colloquial  language.  The  student  will  not  be  able  to  read  a 
grammar  that  includes  the  literary  language  till  he  is  in  the 
fourth  stage,  and  for  historical  grammar  he  will  have  to  wait 
till  he  has  finished  the  fifth  stage. 


SPECIAL   PRINCIPLES   OF   METHOD  121 

The  historical  study  of  grammar  lies  outside  the  domain  of 
the  practical  study  of  languages.  Even  if  we  admit,  with  Storm 
and  the  majority  of  German  linguists,  that  the  study  of  historical 
grammar  and  comparative  philology  '  is  practical  in  a  higher 
sense,  because  it  facilitates  the  comprehension  and  acquisition 
of  the  facts,'  we  cannot  admit  that  it  is  an  essential  part  of  the 
practical  study.  We  only  have  to  ask  ourselves  the  question 
whether  three  years  spent  in  the  exclusively  practical  study  of 
a  language,  or  the  same  time  spent  partly  in  practical,  partly  in 
theoretical  studies  such  as  historical  grammar,  would  yield  the 
better  results.  We  cannot  hesitate  in  answering  that  the  latter 
method  would  be  a  failure  as  compared  with  the  former,  if  only 
because  it  would  not  allow  time  for  acquiring  the  necessary 
practical  knowledge  of  the  older  periods  of  the  language.  If 
we  extended  the  period  to  five  years,  the  disparity  as  regards 
practical  results  would  not  be  so  glaring,  but  the  advantage 
would  still  be  on  the  side  of  the  purely  practical  course. 

(3)  In  the  idiomatic  and  lexical  stage  the  idioms  will  be 
learnt  systematically,  partly  from  reading  idiomatic  texts,  partly 
from  a  phraseology  in  which  the  idioms  will  be  classed  under 
psychological  categories,  as  will  be  explained  hereafter. 

At  the  end  of  this  stage  the  learner  will  have  acquired  a 
thorough  command  of  a  limited  number  of  words  and  phrases 
and  idioms  expressing  the  most  necessary  ideas.  His  voca- 
bulary will  not  be  large— perhaps  not  more  than  three  thousand 
words — but  he  will  command  it  with  ease  and  certainty. 

Those  who  learn  a  language  through  its  literature  often  have 
as  wide  a  vocabulary  as  the  natives,  but  have  no  command  of 
the  elementary  phraseology  :  they  know  words,  but  do  not 
know  how  to  combine  them,  except  from  a  purely  grammatical 
point  of  view.  They  are,  indeed,  often  unable  to  describe  the 
simplest  mechanical  operations,  such  as  '  tie  in  a  knot,'  '  turn 
up  the  gas,'  or  express  such  ideas  as  '  make  haste '  or  '  what  is 
the  matter  ?  '  As  Storm  remarks  (Forbedret  Undervisning, 
22),  there  are  hundreds  of  expressions  in  French,  which, 
although  they  occur  incessantly  in  conversation,  are  seldom  or 
never  taught  in  the  ordinary  school-books  because  they  cannot 
be  brought  under  the  conventional  rules  of  grammar.  Hence 
even  those  who  have  learnt  French  for  years  do  not  know  that, 
for  instance,  the  French  for  '  it  is  kind  of  you '  is  Jest  aimable 
a   vous,  not  de   vous,  and  that    '  it   smokes  here '  cannot  be 


i22     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

translated  by  il  fume  iri,  which  means  '  he  smokes,'  but  only  by 
cafume  id.  '  Very  few  have  the  gift  of  being  able  to  learn  such 
expressions  from  books.  The  material  afforded  by  literature, 
even  in  that  form  of  it  which  approximates  most  closely  to  the 
colloquial  language,  namely,  novels  and  comedies,  is  such  a 
medley,  so  varied,  and  so  mixed,  and  often  so  difficult,  that 
one  expression  drives  out  the  other ;  the  reader  has  enough  to 
do  to  understand  the  contents,  and  has  not  time  to  concentrate 
himself  on  the  separate  expressions.  The  great  art  is,  not  to 
learn  everything,  but  to  take  note  of  the  special  expressions 
that  one  really  requires ;  but  this  is  an  art  which  only  very  few 
are  capable  of.' 

All  this  points  to  the  necessity  of  a  systematic  study  of  the 
vocabulary  and  phraseology  of  the  language,  which  should 
begin  in  this  stage,  and  be  carried  on  in  the  next  stage  as  well, 
where  it  will  have  the  further  use  of  helping  to  prevent  con- 
fusion between  the  colloquial  and  the  literary  language. 

It  must  be  understood  that  the  study  of  the  phraseology  is 
only  a  part  of  the  study  of  the  vocabulary,  as  given  in  an 
ideological  dictionary,  as  explained  hereafter.  The  learner 
should  begin  with  phrases  and  idioms,  and  then  study  the  whole 
of  his  vocabulary  from  the  ideological  point  of  view. 

(4)  The  literary  stage.  As  our  ideal  student  advances,  he 
will  be  able  to  choose  his  texts  with  greater  freedom  and  with 
less  subordination  of  matter  to  form,  till  at  last  he  is  able  to 
enter  on  the  fourth  stage,  and  begin  to  read  the  actual  literature 
unmodified  and  uncurtailed,  beginning,  of  course,  with  ordinary 
prose,  and  proceeding  gradually  to  the  higher  prose  literature 
and  to  poetry. 

There  is  no  reason  why  some  literary  texts  of  exceptional 
simplicity  should  not  be  read  in  the  previous  stage.  In  fact, 
simple  poetry  might  be  read  almost  from  the  beginning,  for  the 
metrical  form  is  generally  an  effectual  bar  to  any  cross-asso- 
ciations with  the  divergent  forms  of  colloquial  prose.  The 
greatest  danger  of  confusion  is  with  the  antiquated  or  artificial 
colloquial  style  of  the  drama. 

In  the  course  of  this  stage  the  learner  will  begin  to  acquire 
the  nomic  spelling  of  such  unphonetically  written  languages  as 
French  and  English.  In  dealing  with  less  unphonetic  lan- 
guages, the  nomic  spelling  may  be  begun  earlier.  With  others 
the  nomic  spelling  will  be  used  almost  from  the  beginning. 


SPECIAL   PRINCIPLES  OF   METHOD  123 

The  learner  will  henceforth  be  able  to  dispense  with  the 
phonetic  transcription  altogether,  except  when  he  wishes  to 
refresh  his  memory  for  purposes  of  conversation. 

(5)  The  archaic  stage  presupposes  a  thorough  mastery  of 
the  modern  literary  language  in  its  most  important  branches,  as 
far,  at  least,  as  understanding  it  goes. 

In  proceeding  to  the  older  literature  of  such  a  language  as 
English,  he  may  either  work  his  way  back  through  Milton  to 
Shakespeare  and  Spenser,  or  he  may  begin  at  once  with  Old 
English  (Anglo-Saxon),  and  work  his  way  down  through 
Chaucer  to  the  modern  period. 

The  choice  between  these  two  main  lines  of  study  and  the 
details  of  the  study  will,  of  course,  depend  on  what  his  objects 
are — especially  on  whether  his  interests  are  purely  linguistic,  or 
whether  he  means  to  use  his  knowledge  of  the  language  as  a 
key  to  literary,  historical,  or  other  non-linguistic  studies  and 
investigations. 


CHAPTER   XI 

GRAMMAR 

Grammar,  like  all  the  other  divisions  of  the  study  of  language, 
has  to  deal  with  the  antithesis  between  form  and  meaning. 

Accidence  and  Syntax 

The  fact  that  in  language  there  is  generally  a  divergence 
between  form  and  meaning — as  when  the  idea  of  plurality  is 
expressed  by  a  variety  of  forms,  and  sometimes  by  none  at  all 
(trees,  men,  sheep),  or  when  the  same  form  is  used  to  express 
distinct  grammatical  functions  (he  sees  the  trees) — makes  it  not 
only  possible,  but  in  many  cases  desirable,  to  treat  grammatical 
form  and  grammatical  meaning  apart. 

That  part  of  grammar  which  concerns  itself  simply  with 
forms,  and  ignores  the  meanings  of  the  grammatical  forms  as 
far  as  possible,  is  called  accidence  or  '  forms '  (German 
formenlehre) ;  that  which  concentrates  its  attention  on  the 
meanings  of  grammatical  forms  is  called  syntax.  Thus  under 
accidence  an  English  grammar  describes,  among  other  details, 
those  of  the  formation  of  the  plural  of  nouns — how  some  add  -s, 
some  -es,  while  others  mark  the  plural  by  vowel-change,  and  so 
on.  In  the  syntax,  on  the  other  hand,  the  grammar  ignores  such 
formal  distinctions  as  are  not  accompanied  by  corresponding 
distinctions  of  meaning,  or  rather  takes  them  for  granted,  and 
considers  only  the  different  meanings  and  grammatical  functions 
of  noun-plurals  in  general.  The  business  of  syntax  is,  therefore, 
to  explain  the  meaning  and  function  of  grammatical  forms, 
especially  the  various  ways  in  which  words  are  joined  together 
to  make  sentences.  As  the  form  of  a  sentence  depends  partly 
on  the  order  of  its  words,  word-order  is  an  important  part  of 
syntax,  especially  when  it  serves  to  make  such  distinctions  as 

124 


GRAMMAR  125 

in  the  English,  the  man  saw  the  fox  first,  and  the  fox  saiv  th  • 
man  first.  In  fact,  word-order  is  the  most  abstract  part  of 
syntax,  just  as  word-order  is  the  most  abstract  grammatical 
form. 

In  accordance  with  its  etymology,  syntax  is  by  some  gram- 
marians regarded  entirely  from  this  latter  point  of  view,  so  that 
it  is  by  them  identified  with  the  analysis  of  sentences,  the  mean- 
ing of  grammatical  forms  being  included  under  accidence. 
Thus  the  peculiar  meaning  of  the  plural  inflection  in  such  words 
as  sands,  kads,  waters  of  the  Nile,  would  by  such  grammarians 
be  discussed  under  accidence,  on  the  ground  that  accidence 
deals  with  isolated  words,  syntax  only  with  combinations  of 
words  into  sentences. 

Although  the  application  of  grammatical  terms  cannot  be 
allowed  to  depend  on  their  etymology,  yet,  as  we  cannot  avoid 
saying  something  about  the  meaning  of  grammatical  forms  under 
accidence — if  only  to  discriminate  between  such  inflections  as 
trees,  Johris,  comes — it  is  often  convenient  to  clear  off  this  part 
of  the  grammar  under  accidence,  especially  if  the  variations  of 
meaning  are  only  slight,  or  else  so  great  that  they  cannot  be 
brought  under  general  rules. 

The  whole  question  is,  after  all,  one  of  convenience.  The 
separation  of  meaning  from  form  is  a  pure  matter  of  conveni- 
ence, and  is  not  founded  on  any  logical  necessity,  but  only  on 
a  defect  of  language  as  it  is,  for  in  an  ideally  perfect  language 
form  and  meaning  would  be  one — there  would  be  no  irregu- 
larities, no  isolated  phenomena,  no  dictionary,  and  what  is  now 
dictionary  and  grammar  would  be  all  syntax.  Even  in  lan- 
guages as  they  exist  form  and  meaning  are  inseparable,  so  that 
the  separation  of  accidence  and  syntax  must  always  be  a  more  or 
less  arbitrary  one,  which  may  vary  in  different  languages,  quite 
apart  from  any  questions  of  convenience. 

Formal  and   Logical  Syntax 

The  duality  of  form  and  meaning  allows  us  to  study  syntax 
from  two  points  of  view.  Formal  syntax  starts  from  the 
grammatical  forms,  and  explains  their  uses  ;  logical  syntax  starts 
from  the  grammatical  categories  expressed  in  language  generally, 
and  describes  the  different  forms  by  which  they  are  expressed, 
as  when  we  describe  the  different  ways  in  which  predication  is 
expressed — by  a  single  verb,  by  the  verb  to  be  with  an  adjective 


126     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

or  noun,  and  so  on.  So  also  in  logical  syntax  the  two  con- 
structions maris  disobedience  and  the  disobedience  of  man  would 
be  treated  of  under  the  same  head,  while  in  formal  syntax  the 
one  would  go  under  'inflections  of  nouns,'  the  other  under 
'  prepositions.' 

It  is  evidently  the  first  business  of  syntax  to  deal  with  the 
phenomena  of  language  from  the  formal  point  of  view,  reserving 
logical  groupings  till  all  the  grammatical  forms  have  had  their 
functions  explained. 

G.  v.  der  Gabelentz  seems  to  have  been  the  first  to  insist  on 
the  distinction  between  formal  and  logical— or,  as  he  calls 
them,  '  analytic '  and  '  synthetic  '  grammar  (Gab.  86,  90).  In 
his  larger  Chinese  grammar  he  has  tried  to  carry  out  the  dis- 
tinction in  detail 

Grammar  and  Dictionary 

We  have  seen  that  grammar  deals  with  those  phenomena  of 
language  which  can  be  brought  under  general  rules,  while  the 
dictionary  deals  with  isolated  phenomena — especially  with  the 
meanings  of  separate  words. 

But  not  of  all  words.  It  is  clear  that  while  the  meaning  of 
such  a  word  as  man  or  house  belongs  to  the  dictionary,  that  of 
such  a  word  as  of  in  the  disobedience  of  man  belongs  to  the 
grammar,  for  it  has  exactly  the  same  function  as  the  -s  of  the 
genitive  case  :  it  cannot,  indeed,  be  said  to  have  any  meaning 
of  its  own  at  all. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  practical  study  of  languages, 
such  a  question  as  whether  or  not  the  prepositions  are  to  be 
treated  of  in  the  grammar  as  well  as  the  dictionary,  and  the 
further  question  whether  all  of  them,  or  only  some  of  them,  are 
to  be  included  in  the  grammar,  must  be  answered  by  showing 
whether  or  not  the  acquisition  of  the  language  will  be  facilitated 
thereby ;  and  this  will  depend  on  the  structure  of  each  language. 

Accidence  and  Syntax  Taught  Together 

We  have  seen  that  there  is  no  real  necessity  for  the  separa- 
tion of  accidence  and  syntax.  Although  practical  convenience 
often  seems  to  call  for  a  separation,  there  may  be  circumstances 
under  which  it  is  desirable  to  treat  forms  and  their  grammatical 
functions  and  meanings  together. 


GRAMMAR  127 

In  Beyer  and  Passy's  Elementarbuch  des  gesprochenen  Franzb- 
sisch  this  principle  has  been  carried  out  consistently.  Thus, 
under  '  definite  article '  first  the  forms  are  given  (la  metr,  le 
peer,  dy  peer),  and  then  under  the  heading  '  gebrauch '  (use)  the 
syntax  of  the  definite  article  is  given.  In  dealing  with  the 
verb,  the  forms  are  first  given  in  a  lump,  the  periphrastic  forms 
as  well  as  the  inflected  being  given,  and  then  the  '  gebrauch.' 
But  this  arrangement  is  only  a  compromise  :  it  simply  amounts 
to  giving  a  chapter  of  accidence  and  a  chapter  of  syntax  alter- 
nately, instead  of  printing  all  the  chapters  on  accidence  together, 
and  then  giving  the  chapters  on  syntax  together.  In  going 
through  such  a  book  as  this,  one  feels  doubtful  whether  it  is  not 
after  all  more  convenient  to  have  the  accidence  all  together,  so 
as  to  facilitate  reference  to  the  paradigms  and  other  sources  of 
information,  instead  of  having  to  search  through  the  whole 
grammar  for  them. 

In  my  First  Steps  in  Anglo-Saxon  I  have  also  tried  the 
experiment  of  teaching  accidence  and  syntax  together.  So  far 
from  subordinating  syntax  to  accidence,  I  have  in  some  cases 
advocated  teaching  syntax  first,  and  for  the  following  reasons, 
as  stated  in  the  preface  to  the  book  :  '  Inflections  may  be  recog- 
nized in  two  ways  :  by  their  form — as  when  we  know  that  a 
noun  is  in  the  dative  plural  by  its  ending  in  -um  ;  and  by  their 
function — as  when  we  infer  from  a  word  expressing  more  than 
one  person  and  standing  in  the  indirect-object  relation  that  it  is 
a  noun  in  the  dative  plural.  Of  these  two  methods  of  parsing 
— the  formal  and  the  syntactical — sometimes  one  is  easier, 
sometimes  the  other.  There  is  therefore  every  reason  why 
elementary  syntax  should  be  learnt  simultaneously  with  acci- 
dence. It  seems  irrational  to  oblige  a  beginner  to  recognize 
such  a  grammatical  category  as  the  subjunctive  mood  solely  by 
irregular  and  perplexing  inflections,  when  such  a  simple  rule  as 
"  it  is  always  used  in  indirect  narration  "  may  enable  him  to 
recognize  a  large  number  of  subjunctives  with  mathematical 
certainty.' 

In  accordance  with  these  principles,  I  have  in  the  grammar  to 
First  Steps  in  Ang/o-Saxonb\ended  accidence  and  syntax  together 
more  closely  than  in  Passy's  book.  Thus  under  '  cases '  I  first 
describe  the  formal  peculiarities  of  each  case,  and  then  describe 
its  functions.  One  of  the  advantages  of  this  arrangement  is 
that  the  syntactical  examples  serve  to  imprint  the  formal  details 
more  firmly  on  the  learner's  memory,  being,  in  fact,  chosen 


i28    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

partly  for  that  purpose.  In  beginning  the  verbs,  I  confine 
myself  at  first  to  the  indicative  mood  together  with  the  infinitive 
and  participles.  Then,  when  I  have  given  a  general  sketch  of 
the  different  classes  of  verbs  from  this  limited  point  of  view, 
I  go  on  to  describe  the  forms  of  the  subjunctive  mood,  and 
how  they  differ  from  those  of  the  indicative,  which  takes  up 
only  half  a  page ;  I  then  devote  two  pages  to  stating  the  chief 
rules  for  the  use  of  the  subjunctive,  with  examples.  In  this 
way  the  danger  of  confusing  the  forms  of  the  subjunctive  with 
those  of  the  indicative — and  in  Old  English  these  two  moods 
are  especially  liable  to  be  confused — is  reduced  to  a  minimum. 

Stages  of  Grammatical  Analysis 

In  this  book  I  have  also  tried  to  do  justice  to  another  im- 
portant principle  of  practical  grammar,  namely,  that  grammatical 
analysis  has  two  stages,  one  of  recognition  or  identification,  and 
another  of  reproduction  or  construction.  As  I  say  in  the  pre- 
face, '  The  first  requisite  is  to  understand  written  texts,  which 
involves  only  the  power  of  recognizing  grammatical  forms,  not 
of  constructing  them,  as  in  the  further  stage  of  writing  or  speaking 
the  language.  Thus  in  beginning  the  second  text  in  the  present 
book,  a  learner  in  the  first  stage  is  expected  to  find  out  for 
himself  that  manna  is  in  the  genitive  plural,  and  that  craftum 
is  in  the  dative  plural,  and  to  infer  from  the  ending  -ne  in 
hwelcne  that  craft  is  masculine.  He  will  then  be  able  to  infer 
with  tolerable  certainty  from  what  he  has  learnt  in  the  grammar 
that  the  plural  of  crceft  is  crceftas,  but  this  inference  belongs 
really  to  the  second  stage  :  a  learner  in  the  first  stage  is  only 
expected  to  recognize  the  inflection  of  crceftas  when  he  meets 
it.  The  first  object,  therefore,  of  a  simplified  grammar  is  to 
give  what  is  necessary  to  enable  a  beginner  to  recognize  the 
grammatical  forms  in  the  texts  he  is  about  to  read.  .  .  .  The 
first  thing  is  to  explain  the  general  structure  of  the  language — 
that  in  Old  English,  for  instance,  nouns  have  three  genders,  that 
the  gender  is  partly  grammatical,  that  nouns  have  four  cases — 
and  to  state  those  general  rules  which  admit  of  no  exception, 
such  as  that  all  nouns  in  -a  are  masculine,  and  that  compound 
nouns  follow  the  gender  of  their  last  element.  Those  irregular 
forms  which  are  of  very  frequent  occurrence — such  as  the  in- 
flections of  the  definite  article — must  of  course  be  learnt  by 
heart  at  once,  the  learner  relying  on  their  incessant  repetition 


GRAMMAR  139 

to  fix  them  in  his  memory.  Less  frequent  irregularities 
need  not  be  included  in  the  grammar  at  all,  their  explana- 
tion being  relegated  to  a  note  [to  the  texts].  ...  In  deal- 
ing with  the  strong  verbs,  it  will  be  seen  that  after  giving 
a  general  account  of  their  formation  and  a  few  general  rules 
— such  as  that  in  the  preterite  the  second  person  singular 
always  has  the  same  vowel  as  the  plural — I  content  myself  with 
giving  the  typical  forms  of  each  verb  in  a  note  to  the  passage 
where  it  first  occurs.  ...  In  some  cases  where  there  is  more 
than  one  form,  but  without  there  being  any  great  complex  ity  or 
irregularity,  I  steer  a  middle  course  :  I  mention  the  various 
forms,  but  without  giving  any  rules  for  their  use.  Thus  I 
merely  say  that  most  strong  neuters  take  -u  in  the  plural  or  else 
remain  unchanged.  ...  In  the  grammar  I  have  been  careful 
to  group  parallel  forms  together  as  much  as  possible.  Thus 
under  "  cases "  I  give  the  inflections  of  nouns,  the  definite 
article,  and  the  personal  pronouns  all  together,  so  that,  for 
instance,  the  learner  may  make  them,  her  stepping-stones  to 
yam,  hire,  yTe/r,  and  afterwards  to  the  corresponding  strong 
adjective  inflections.  The  occasional  paradigms  are  in  most 
cases  not  intended  to  be  learnt  by  heart,  but  serve  only  to  sum 
up  the  scattered  information  already  given.' 

I  then  go  on  to  say, '  All  these  principles  are  those  which  are 
carried  out — consciously  or  unconsciously — by  most  linguists. 
An  experienced  linguist  in  attacking  a  new  language  begins 
with  the  shortest  grammar  he  can  find.  He  first  takes  a  general 
bird's-eye  view  of  the  language,  finds  out  what  are  its  special 
difficulties,  what  has  to  be  brought  under  general  rules,  what  to 
learn  detail  by  detail,  what  to  put  off  till  a  later  stage.  The 
rash  beginner  who  starts  with  a  big  grammar  forgets  two-thirds 
of  it  soon  after  he  begins  independentlreading.  Such  a  grammar 
as  the  one  in  the  present  work  simply  attempts  to  give  him 
the  really  useful  residue  which,  when  once  learnt,  is  not  and 
cannot  be  forgotten.' 

Grammar  Learnt  Unconsciously 

We  have  already  seen  how  the  first  or  mechanical  stage  of 
learning  a  language,  being  the  pre-grammatical  stage,  may  be 
utilized  to  convey  a  good  deal  of  grammatical  information  not 
directly  through  rules,  but  indirectly  through  examples,  so  that 
when  the  learner  comes  to  the  rule,  he  finds  that  he  knows  it 

K 


130     THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

already,  or,  at  any  rate,  has  advanced  half  way  towards  knowing 
it — a  result  which  is  a  special  help  in  mastering  irregularities 
(p.  119).  Thus  in  the  grammar  to  First  Steps  I  give  under  the 
phonology,  among  other  examples  of  the  vowels,  twa  handa, 
'  two  hands,'  twegen  pet,  '  two  feet,'  twegen  menn,  '  two  men,'  so 
that  when  the  learner  comes  to  the  numerals,  he  finds  that  the 
paradigm 

twegen      twa      twa 

V ^ , 

tw&m 
twegra 

offers  hardly  any  new  difficulties;  for  he  finds  the  above 
examples  repeated  with  a  reference  to  the  place  where  they 
occur,  but  without  any  translation,  together  with  mid  twam 
handum  as  an  example  of  the  dative,  whose  ending  -m  is  already 
familiar  to  him,  from  the  nouns  and  adjectives.  The  only 
remaining  form  twegra  is  sufficiently  illustrated  by  the  parallel 
genitives  yre'ora  and  yritigra,  of  which  1  proceed  at  once  to 
give  examples  in  sentences.  The  form  twegra  is  only  added 
to  complete  the  paradigm,  as  it  does  not  occur  in  the  texts  in 
First  Steps,  for  which  reason  no  special  example  is  given  of  it. 
It  will  be  seen  that  after  the  learner  has  gone  through  such 
a  book  as  First  Steps,  in  which  the  grammar  is  kept  strictly 
within  the  limits  of  the  recognition-stage,  a  great  part  of  his 
grammatical  knowledge  will  be  unconscious  instead  of  analytic 
and  systematic.  Thus  he  will  know  a  good  many  individual 
forms  of  strong  verbs,  but  will  know  nothing  of  the  distinctions 
of  class.  Thus  he  may  know  that  brecan  has  preterite  brae  and 
preterite  participle  brocen,  but  he  has  not  learnt  to  refer  it  to  the 
bear-class,  although  he  may  have  noticed  the  parallelism  between 
brcec,  brocen  and  bear,  boren,  and  may  have  strengthened  this 
association  by  remembering  the  further  parallel  stdan,  steel, 
stolen.  In  this  way  he  will  be  well  prepared  for  the  classifica- 
tion of  the  strong  verbs.  A  few  weeks'  work  at  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Primer,  which  is  constructed  on  the  rigorous  grammar-and- 
glossary  historical  method — though  otherwise  made  as  simple 
and  easy  as  possible — will  then,  as  I  have  said  in  the  preface 
to  First  Steps,  enable  him  to  '  systematize  his  knowledge  and 
round  it  off,  and  he  will  proceed  to  the  elements  of  historical 
and  comparative  grammar  with  all  the  more  zest  through  not 
having  had  them  crammed  into  him  prematurely.' 


GRAMMAR  131 

Evils  of  the  Separation  of  Syntax  from 
Accidence 

The  evils  of  the  separation  of  syntax  from  accidence  are  well 
shown  in  the  way  in  which  the  dead  languages  are  taught  in 
schools.  Boys  are  made  to  learn  paradigms  by  heart,  and  are 
then  set  to  read  the  classical  authors  with  the  help  of  a  dic- 
tionary before  they  have  acquired  any  real  knowledge  of  the 
meanings  of  the  inflections  they  are  expected  to  recognize  in 
their  texts — much  as  if  they  were  taught  the  names  of  tools 
without  being  taught  their  uses.  Thus  in  learning  Greek  they 
are  taught  to  recognize  the  optative  mood  entirely  by  its  form 
without  having  any  idea  of  its  meanings  and  functions  as  dis- 
tinguished from  those  of  the  subjunctive,  of  which,  indeed, 
they  come  to  regard  it  as  an  arbitrary  and  unmeaning  variation ; 
to  which  may  be  added  that  their  ideas  about  the  meaning  and 
function  of  the  subjunctive  mood  itself  are  vague  enough. 
When  they  are  afterwards  made  to  learn  the  rules  of  syntax, 
they  are  unable  to  apply  these  rules  to  what  they  are  reading, 
and  in  most  cases  the  possibility  of  doing  so  never  enters  their 
minds  :  they  prefer  to  go  on  as  before,  and  to  guess  at  the 
meaning  from  the  context  without  paying  any  regard  to  the 
moods.  It  is  not  very  long  ago  that  the  rules  of  Greek  syntax 
were  learnt  in  Latin — an  effectual  bar  to  any  intelligent  appli- 
cation of  them. 

Examples 

It  is  now  generally  admitted  that  a  grammatical  rule  without 
an  example  is  of  no  practical  use :  it  is  an  abstraction  which 
is  incapable  of  entering  into  any  direct  associations  with 
anything  in  the  language  itself..  The  example,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  concrete  :  it  can  be  imprinted  firmly  on  the  memory 
by  the  mere  force  of  the  mechanical  associations  involved  in 
carefully  reading  it  and  carefully  pronouncing  it  aloud ;  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  is  logically  associated  with  the  rule,  which 
it  explains,  illustrates,  and  justifies.  The  example  serves  also 
as  a  standard  or  pattern  by  which  the  learner  can  recognize 
other  examples  of  the  rule  as  they  occur  in  his  reading.  The 
example  is  thus  a  link  between  these  other  examples  and  the 
rule  itself. 

Many   of  the   older  grammarians,  while   expending   much 


132     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

thought  and  care  on  elaborating  their  statement  of  the  rules, 
considered  the  choice  of  examples  as  of  subordinate  impor- 
tance. They  forgot  that  the  first  object  of  grammatical  study 
is  not  the  acquisition  of  rules,  but  of  a  practical  command  of 
the  language  itself;  so  that  instead  of  the  examples  being 
intended  solely  to  illustrate  the  rules,  the  true  relation  is  almost 
the  reverse :  the  rules  are  mere  stepping-stones  to  the  under- 
standing of  the  examples ;  so  when  the  latter  are  once 
thoroughly  understood,  the  rules  become  superfluous  and  may 
be  forgotten. 

These  considerations  have  led  some  reformers  to  advocate 
putting  the  example  before  the  rule,  the  idea  being  that  the 
learner  is  thereby  led  to  study  the  example  carefully  and  then 
deduce  the  rule  for  himself,  and  finally  compare  his  deduction 
with  the  rule  as  formulated  in  the  grammar.  This  is  the  old 
inventional  fallacy  (p.  116)  over  again.  Experience  shows 
that  when  the  learner  knows  that  the  work  of  deducing  the 
rule  from  the  examples  has  been  already  done  for  him,  he 
naturally  declines  to  do  it  again,  so  that,  if  the  rule  is  put  after 
the  example,  he  simply  reads  the  rule  first,  and  then  returns 
to  the  example.  If,  however,  he  prefers  to  read  the  example 
first,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  him  from  doing  so,  whether 
it  precedes  the  rule  or  not.  Most  learners  prefer  to  read  the 
rule  first  in  order  to  know  what  the  example  is  about,  and 
what  to  look  for  in  it — for  a  sentence  may  be,  in  itself,  an 
example  of  a  dozen  rules  of  grammar — and  if  they  do  not 
understand  the  rule,  they  then  read  the  example  and  return 
to  the  rule  again,  and  when  they  finally  understand  the  rule, 
they  concentrate  their  attention  on  the  example.  We  may 
say,  in  short,  that  the  order  of  rule  and  example  is  of  no 
importance  compared  with  their  mutual  relations. 

The  number  of  examples  depends  partly  on  the  nature  of 
the  rule,  partly  on  the  scope  and  size  of  the  grammar. 

Some  rules  hardly  require  any  example  at  all  through  being 
practically  of  universal  application,  or  self-evident,  or  because 
they  are  of  no  intrinsic  importance,  and  are  added  only  for  the 
sake  of  completeness.  But  it  is  a  safe  principle  never  to  take 
for  granted  that  a  rule  does  not  require  an  example  :  if  adding 
a  few  words  in  parentheses  will  make  the  statement  or  rule  any 
easier  to  grasp,  or  prevent  some  misunderstanding  that  the 


GRAMMAR  133 

writer  never  thought  of,  they  certainly  ought  to  be  added.  If 
they  are  superfluous,  no  harm  is  done.  Besides,  what  is  super- 
fluous to  one  reader  may  be  helpful  or  even  necessary  to 
another.  German  writers  often  exasperate  the  reader  by 
giving  half  a  page  of  examples  of  some  pet  truism  that  requires 
only  two  words  to  illustrate  and  prove  it,  and  then  make  a 
series  of  abstract  generalizations  expressed  in  unfamiliar  and 
arbitrarily  defined  terminology  without  any  help  in  the  way 
of  example,  so  that  they  often  become  unintelligible  even  to 
their  own  countrymen. 

If  every  rule  is  to  have  an  example,  it  follows  that  a  com- 
pound rule  ought  to  have  an  example  of  each  division  of  the 
rule.  Thus,  such  a  rule  as  that  '  verbs  expressing  joy,  desire, 
memory  govern  the  genitive '  requires  at  least  three  examples. 
But  in  such  a  case  as  this  many  short  grammars  would  give 
only  one,  on  the  mechanical  principle  that  each  paragraph  is 
to  have  only  one  example.  Even  in  the  shortest  grammar 
space  may  generally  be  found  for  a  full  number  of  examples 
by  omitting  some  of  the  irrelevant  matter  of  which  such  ill- 
planned  books  are  generally  full. 

If  there  is  not  room  for  more  than  one  example  to  those 
rules  which  really  seem  to  require  it,  additional  examples  to 
those  rules  that  most  require  it  may  be  given  in  a  separate 
book. 

A  good  example  must  fulfil  two  conditions :  (1)  It  must 
illustrate  and  confirm  the  rule  unambiguously.  Thus,  as 
already  remarked  (p.  107),  examples  of  the  use  of  the  ablative 
in  Latin  should,  if  possible,  be  forms  which  cannot  be  taken 
for  datives.  (2)  The  example  must  be  intelligible  as  it  stands, 
without  any  further  context.  If  the  example  is  a  sentence  or 
is  contained  in  a  sentence,  the  sentence  should  be  one  which 
will  bear  isolation  from  the  context.  In  dealing  with  separate 
words,  it  is  often  a  great  help  to  the  learner  to  give  them  in 
natural  groups  such  as  hands  and  feet \  buy  and  sell,  past,  prese?it, 
and  future,  dead  or  alive,  neither  here  nor  there.  The  more 
concrete  a  word  is,  the  better  it  will  bear  isolation.  It  is  mere 
waste  of  space  to  give  bare  lists  of  prepositions,  conjunctions, 
and  other  form-words  in  an  elementary  practical  grammar. 

It  need  scarcely  be  said  that  the  examples  must  be  in  the 
language  with  which  the  grammar  deals.     Thus  no  one  would 


134    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

think  of  illustrating  a  rule  of  Spanish  syntax  by  a  Portuguese 
example.  But  it  is  almost  as  great  an  absurdity  to  illustrate 
rules  of  modern  English  syntax  by  examples  taken  from  Shake- 
speare, except  in  special  cases  where  the  earlier  constructions 
have  been  imitated  by  modern  writers.  All  of  this  would, 
however,  be  quite  out  of  place  in  a  practical  grammar  for 
beginners. 

Carrying  this  principle  a  little  further,  we  must  be  careful 
that  our  examples  in  an  elementary  grammar  do  not  contain 
any  specially  difficult  or  rare  words  or  irregularities  of  con- 
struction which  do  not  directly  illustrate  the  rule. 

Examples  made  up  extempore  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating 
a  rule  are  not  so  good  as  those  which  have  been  collected  from 
a  variety  of  writings.  There  is,  first  of  all,  the  danger  of 
monotonous  repetition  of  words,  ideas,  and  constructions.  In 
the  effort  to  frame  collocations  of  words  to  illustrate  some  rule, 
the  grammarian  is  apt  to  produce  unnatural,  trivial,  or  other- 
wise objectionable  sentences,  such  as  the  golden  sun  shines 
brightly  \  the  happy  children  of  our  teacher  sing  sweetly  enough 
from  their  book  of  hymns,  both  taken  from  an  English  grammar 
of  some  repute  in  its  time. 

Every  example  ought  to  be  explained — even  in  the  phono- 
logy. The  translation  of  a  new  word  not  only  gives  a  useful 
piece  of  information,  but  serves  also  to  identify  the  word. 

But  the  explanation  need  not  necessarily  take  the  form  of 
translation.  There  is  one  objection  to  translating  the  examples 
in  a  grammar :  the  learner  is  tempted  to  read  them  carelessly, 
and  so  not  get  all  the  benefit  that  would  result  from  a  con- 
scientious analysis  of  them.  In  my  First  Steps  in  Anglo-Saxon 
I  have  therefore  tried  the  experiment  of  putting  the  explanation 
of  the  examples  in  the  grammar  on  the  same  footing  as  the 
words  in  the  texts,  as  far  as  possible,  so  as  to  oblige  the  learner 
to  read  the  examples  with  the  same  care  as  the  texts  themselves. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  grammar  each  example  is  translated 
in  full.  When  a  word  or  word-group  or  sentence  is  repeated 
in  the  grammar,  it  is  not  translated,  but  the  learner  is  referred 
back  to  the  place  where  it  is  translated ;  and  after  the  first  few 
pages  each  new  word  in  the  examples  is  explained  in  the  notes 
at  the  end  of  the  book.  Hence  the  reader  is  obliged  to  study 
each  example  carefully,  and  with  constant  comparison  of  what 


GRAMMAR 


J35 


he  has  already  learnt,  while  at  the  same  time  he  has  every 
inducement  to  learn  thoroughly  every  page  before  proceeding 
to  another. 

Paradigms 

The  paradigms  and  tabulations  in  an  elementary  grammar 
ought  to  be  regarded  mainly  as  summings  up  of  what  has  already 
been  learnt  indirectly  or  in  the  form  of  scattered  details  (p.  129). 

The  principle  of  combining  words  into  groups  rather  than 
presenting  them  singly  (p.  133)  should  be  carried  out  in 
paradigms  for  beginners  as  far  as  possible.  Thus,  in  dealing 
with  an  inflectional  language,  nouns  should  be  accompanied  by 
the  definite  article  or  some  similar  word,  adjectives  by  a  noun 
whose  gender  is  known.  In  Old  English  and  German  the 
weak  inflection  of  adjectives  should  be  exhibited  in  its  natural 
surroundings,  that  is,  with  the  definite  article  as  well  as  a  noun. 
This,  I  believe,  is  generally  done  in  the  German  grammars 
used  in  England.  To  take  an  example  from  Old  English,  it 
is  evident  that  such  a  collocation  as  \one  godan  witan  must 
strengthen  the  associations  by  which  the  learner  has  already 
learnt  to  recognize  \one  and  witan  as  accusative  masculine 
singulars,  so  that  the  weak  inflection  godan  offers  no  new 
difficulty,  while  the  preceding  definite  article  always  reminds 
him  of  the  syntactical  conditions  on  which  weak  adjective- 
inflection  depends. 

From  this  point  of  view  the  Middle-Age  grammarians  with 
their  incessant  hie,  haee,  hoc  were  really  more  practical  than 
their  successors.  It  was  not  the  old  grammarians'  fault  that 
Latin  had  no  article ;  and  they  certainly  took  the  best  substitute 
they  could  find.  So  also  were  the  old-fashioned  French 
grammars  when  they  indicated  the  subjunctive  mood  by  the 
addition  of  que:  que  je  sois,  que  tu  sois  ...  I  need  hardly 
say  that  I  follow  this  precedent  in  my  First  Steps :  indicative 
ic  wear]>,  subjunctive  \<zt  ic  wttrde. 

In  a  paradigm,  the  first  requisite  is  clearness  and  simplicity  : 
such  words  must  be  chosen  as  will  best  bring  out  the  gram- 
matical phenomena  in  question  without  perplexing  the  learner 
by  complications  arising  from  special  sound-changes  and  other 
disturbing  factors.  Hence  it  may  happen  that  the  number  of 
words  suitable  for  the  purpose  is  but  small.  Thus  in  Old 
English,  if  we  look  for  a  simple  adjective  to  show  the  feminine 


136    THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

ending  -u  without  any  accompanying  vowel-change  in  the  body 
of  the  word,  we  shall  hardly  find  any  but  sum,  while  there  is  a 
wide  choice  among  those  which  drop  the  -u. 

The  question  now  arises,  whether  we  ought  to  keep  the  same 
word  throughout  a  paradigm  or  series  of  paradigms,  or  whether 
the  examples  ought  to  be  varied  as  much  as  possible.  In  such 
Old-English  paradigms  as 

Sing.  Nom.  god  craft  god  did  god  ewe n 

Ace.    godne  crceft  god  cild  gode  cwene 

•  •  •  •  #  •  « 

and 

Sing.  Nom.    sum  crceft  sum  cild  sumu  ewen 

Ace.     sumne  craft  sum  cild  sume  cweue 

which  are  intended  to  bring  out  the  distinction  just  mentioned, 
there  is  the  minimum  of  variety  :  we  must  have  two  different 
adjectives,  and  we  must  have  three  different  nouns  to  bring 
out  the  three  different  genders.  It  might  now  be  urged  that 
the  associations  of  gender  would  be  strengthened  by  giving 
each  noun  a  different  adjective — thus  god  craft,  geons;  cild,  wis 
civen.  But  the  scarcity  of  adjectives  with  feminir.es  in  -u  would 
make  it  difficult  to  carry  out  this  variation  in  the  second 
paradigm.  It  must  also  be  remembered  that  by  keeping  one 
adjective  throughout  in  each  of  the  two  paradigms  the  contrast 
between  the  two  is  made  more  definite,  and  at  the  same  time 
the  unity  of  each  paradigm  is  asserted  more  strongly.  The 
principle  of  variety  is  carried  to  an  extreme  in  the  following 
paradigms  taken  from  Bernay's  German  Grammar  and  German 
Exercises  :  — 

ieh  ww  de  grfassen  I  became  very  calm 

du  wurdest  bose  thou  becamest  angry 

er  wurde  gchorsam  he  became  obedient 

wir  wurden  tingchorsam  we  became  disobedient 

ihr  wurdet  blasz  you  became  pale 

sie  wurdeti  ausgemergelt  they  became  emaciated 

ich  sey  hell-blau   oder  himmel-  I  may  be  light-blue    or    sky 

blau  blue 

du    seyst  purpur-farbig    oder  thou  mayest  be  purple  or  scar- 

scharlach-roth  let 


GRAMMAR  137 

ich  habe  den  muth  des  kriegers  I  may  have  praised  the  courage 

gelobt  of  the  warrior 

du  habest  die  farben  des  gemal-  thou  mayest  have  praised  the 

des  gelobt  colours  of  the  picture 

er  habe  den  in  half  des  werkes  he  may  have  praised  the  con- 

gelobt  tents  of  the  work 

It  must  be  understood  that  these  are  not  given  as  substitutes 
for  the  ordinary  paradigms,  but  as  an  appendix  to  the  grammar. 
They  are  in  fact  strings  of  detached  sentences,  or  '  exercises ' 
which  are  not  written,  but  learnt  by  heart.  All  the  objections 
that  can  be  made  against  the  system  of  detached  sentences 
apply  with  double  force  to  such  paradigms.  They  are  intended 
to  serve  the  double  purpose  of  fixing  the  inflections  in  the 
learner's  mind  and  at  the  same  time  systematically  enlarging 
his  vocabulary;  but  as  there  is  no  association  between  the 
sentences  except  the  indirect  one  of  their  belonging  to  the  same 
logical  category,  and  as  the  association  between  the  head-word 
of  the  paradigm  and  the  added  words  is  very  slight,  learning 
these  paradigms  does  not  help  us  to  remember  the  vocabulary 
they  embody  much  more  than  if  we  fell  back  on  the  old  plan 
of  learning  bare  lists  of  words  (p.  100). 

But  the  unity  of  paradigms  may  be  carried  too  far.  In 
Arabic  the  connection  between  the  different  conjugations  or 
classes  of  verbs  is  so  close  that  the  same  verb-root  can  occur 
in  a  variety  of  classes — sometimes  in  nearly  all.  It  is  therefore 
usual  in  Arabic  grammars  to  make  up  the  paradigms  as  far  as 
possible  with  one  verb-root,  such  as  fa'al,  '  do,'  or  qatal,  '  kill,' 
thus — 

1.  qatala,  11.  qattala,  III.  qatala,  iv.  aqtala,  v.  taqaltala, 
vi.  taqatala,  vn.  inqatala,  viii.  iqtatala,  ix.  iqtalla,  x.  istaqtala. 

This  is  as  if  in  Latin  we  were  to  make  am-  the  sole  basis  of 
our  paradigms  of  all  the  conjugations  :  1.  amare,  amat ;  11.  amere, 
amet ;  in.  amere,  amit ;  iv.  amire,  amit.  The  parallel  is  not  a 
fair  one,  because  many  of  the  forms  of  qatala  given  above 
actually  exist.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  such  a  form  as  the 
ninth  is  a  complete  monstrosity,  this  class  being  practically 
confined  to  expressions  of  change  of  colour.  It  is  clear,  there- 
fore, that  the  only  appropriate  verb-root  for  this  class  is  such  a 
one  as  sa/ar,  '  be  yellow ; '  in  fact,  it  is  doubtful  whether  any 
one  would  be  able  to  give  the  ninth  form  of  qatal  or  katab 


138     THE  PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

except  with  much  hesitation  and  comparison  with  a  genuine 
ninth-class  form  such  as  isfarra,  '  become  yellow.'  It  is  a 
question,  therefore,  whether  it  would  not  be  better  for  Arabic 
grammar  to  follow  the  example  of  Latin,  and  exemplify  each 
class  with  a  distinct  verb-root,  thus  : 

I.  kataba, '  write ; '  II.  sallama,  '  give  up ; '  ill.  qatala,  '  fight ; ' 
IV.  arsala,  '  send ; '  v.  takallama,  '  speak  ; '  vi.  tarahana, '  bet ; ' 
vii.  inkasara,  l  be  broken ; '  vni.  iktasaba,  '  gain ; '  ix.  isfarra, 
'  turn  yellow ; '  x.  istahsana,  '  approve.' 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  formation  of  the  eighth  class  by 
insertion  of  a  /  after  the  first  consonant  of  the  root  is  clearer  in 
iktasaba  (from  root  kasab)  than  in  iqtatala  with  its  two  /'s. 

On  the  whole,  this  method  has  the  double  advantage  of 
keeping  the  different  classes  more  distinct,  and  giving  each 
a  greater  individuality,  while  at  the  same  time  it  enlarges  the 
learner's  vocabulary — a  point  of  great  importance  in  the  study 
of  Arabic,  whose  vocabulary  is  so  exceptionally  difficult. 

Fullness  of  Treatment 

As  regards  fullness  of  treatment,  there  is  an  obvious  distinction 
to  be  made  between  a  grammar — whether  for  beginners  or 
advanced  students — which  is  to  be  assimilated  completely  so 
that  the  learner  at  last  practically  knows  it  by  heart,  and  one 
which  is  only  for  reference. 

The  latter  will  aim  at  being  exhaustive  wherever  reasonable 
and  practicable,  and  will  perhaps  give  information  on  a  variety 
of  subjects  which  would  be  omitted  altogether  in  the  learner's 
grammar.  Thus  it  may  give  rules  for  the  gender  of  nouns 
with  almost  exhaustive  lists  of  exceptions — all  of  which  would 
be  superfluous  to  the  ordinary  student,  who  learns  his  genders 
simply  by  associating  each  word  with  the  definite  article,  or 
some  such  equivalent  as  the  Latin  hie,  haec,  hoc.  So  also  the 
reference-grammar  ought  to  give  information  on  a  variety  of 
subjects  which  belong  to  the  debateable  land  between  grammar 
and  dictionary.  The  alphabetic  index  to  such  a  grammar  and 
the  lists  scattered  through  it  will,  indeed,  be  almost  dictionaries 
— or  at  least  the  foundations  of  dictionaries. 

Brevity  is,  of  course,  in  itself  a  desirable  quality  in  any 
grammar,  especially  in  one  intended  for  reference :  the  more 
matter  is  brought  together  on  a  page,  the  easier  and  quicker 


GRAMMAR  139 

the  reference  is,  in  a  grammar  as  well  as  in  a  dictionary.  In 
an  elementary  grammar,  where  fullness  of  explanation  and 
illustration  is  indispensable,  brevity  can  only  be  obtained  by 
strict  limitation  of  plan  and  exclusion  of  everything  irrelevant 
or  in  any  way  superfluous.  Brevity  in  an  elementary  grammar 
must  never  be  obtained  by  omitting  what  is  essential — by 
omitting  examples,  translations,  transliterations,  or  any  other 
necessary  helps.  Most  of  the  grammars  of  the  Porta  linguarum 
orientalmm  series  err  in  this  respect. 

Such  grammars  often  waste  space  by  giving  information 
which  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  practical  elementary  study  of 
the  language,  such  as  histories  of  its  literature,  sketches  of  its 
dialects,  long  bibliographies,  weights  and  measures,  not  to 
speak  of  etymologies  and  comparisons  with  cognate  languages. 
I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  much  of  this  information  is  not 
useful  in  itself,  nor  would  I  deny  that  in  some  cases  an 
appendix  to  a  grammar  may  be  its  proper  place,  but  it  must 
not  be  allowed  to  encroach  on  what  is  essential  from  the  purely 
grammatical  point  of  view. 

As  examples  of  legitimate  condensation  I  would  mention 
Gabelentz'  A?ifangsgrilnde  der  chinesischen  grammatik  and 
Asboth's  Kurze  russische  grami?iatik. 


CHAPTER   XII 

THE    DICTIONARY;    STUDY    OF    THE    VOCABULARY 

It  will,  perhaps,  be  most  convenient  to  begin  with  that  aspect 
of  the  dictionary  which  makes  it  the  reverse  of  the  grammar. 
From  this  point  of  view  we  have  already  defined  a  dictionary 
as  a  collection  of  the  isolated  phenomena  of  a  language — those 
which  cannot  easily  and  conveniently  be  brought  under  general 
rules.  It  follows  from  this  that  the  main  function  of  a 
dictionary  is  to  give  the  meanings  of  separate  words.  Some 
dictionaries  confine  themselves  strictly  to  this  function.  But  a 
dictionary  which  does  not  sacrifice  everything  to  giving  as  large 
a  vocabulary  as  possible  in  the  shortest  space  ought  to  give  a 
good  deal  more  than  this. 

Idioms  fall  entirely  within  the  province  of  the  dictionary, 
because  the  meaning  of  each  idiom  is  an  isolated  fact  which 
cannot  be  inferred  from  the  meaning  of  the  words  of  which  the 
idiom  is  made  up :  a  dictionary  which  explains  the  meaning  of 
do  without  explaining  that  of  how  do  you  do?  is  useless  as  a 
guide  to  the  meanings  of  words. 

A  thoroughly  useful  dictionary  ought,  besides,  to  give  infor- 
mation on  various  grammatical  details,  which,  though  they  fall 
under  general  rules  of  grammar,  are  too  numerous  or  too 
arbitrary  and  complicated  to  be  treated  of  in  detail  in  any  but  a 
full  reference-grammar :  such  a  dictionary  ought  to  give  full 
information  about  those  grammatical  constructions  which 
characterize  individual  words,  and  cannot  be  deduced  with 
certainty  and  ease  from  a  simple  grammatical  rule.  Thus  it 
ought  to  give  full  information  about  the  prepositions  by  which 
verbs  are  connected  with  the  words  they  govern  (think  of,  think 
about,  think  over,  part  from,  part  with).  Such  a  dictionary 
ought  further  to  give  the  anomalous  and  irregular  forms, 
especially  those  which  are  of  only  occasional  occurrence,  so 

140 


THE   DICTIONARY  141 

that  the  learner  cannot  reasonably  be  expected  to  be  perfectly 
familiar  with  them. 

A  full  dictionary  of  this  kind  is  obviously  suited  for  reference 
only.  All  grammars — even  the  most  detailed  reference- 
grammars — can  be  read  through  with  profit ;  but  few  would 
think  of  reading  through  an  ordinary  dictionary.  It  need 
scarcely  be  said  that  M.  Gouin,  who  tried  every  conceivable 
method  of  learning  German— that  is,  all  except  a  rationally 
progressive  one  on  a  phonetic  basis — tried  this  also.  He  took 
a  dictionary  of  three  hundred  pages,  and  not  only  read,  but 
learnt  by  heart  ten  pages  a  day,  so  that  in  a  month  he  knew 
the  whole  dictionary  by  heart.  Such,  at  least,  is  his  statement. 
The  result  was  what  might  have  been  expected  :  he  could  not 
understand  a  word  of  German,  and  in  a  month  he  forgot  all  he 
.had  learnt. 

Ease  of  reference  involves  alphabetic  order,  as  in  the  index 
to  a  grammar.  In  fact,  an  ordinary  alphabetic  dictionary  is,  in 
some  respects,  simply  an  expanded  index  to  a  reference- 
grammar. 

We  will  now  consider  the  principles  on  which  such  diction- 
aries ought  to  be  constructed. 

Scope 

As  convenience  of  reference  requires  that  a  dictionary  should 
be  as  little  bulky  as  is  consistent  with  efficiency,  it  is  advisable 
that  its  scope  should  be  distinctly  denned  and  strictly  limited. 
A  dictionary  of  English  for  practical  use  by  foreigners,  or  a 
French  or  German  dictionary  for  practical  use  by  English 
speakers,  is,  in  the  nature  of  things,  mainly  a  dictionary  of  the 
present  stage  of  these  languages  :  its  foundation  is  the  modern 
colloquial  and  literary  language,  which  involves,  of  course,  the 
inclusion  of  a  certain  number  of  archaic  words  used  in  the 
higher  literature,  together  with  a  certain  amount  of  slang  and 
vulgarisms  and  those  dialectal  words  which  have  found  their 
way  into  general  literature  and  conversation. 

Such  a  dictionary  as  the  New  English  Dictionary,  which 
attempts  to  include  the  whole  English  vocabulary  from  1200 
to  the  present  day,  is  not,  even  from  a  purely  scientific  and 
theoretical  point  of  view,  a  dictionary,  but  a  series  of  diction- 
aries digested  under  one  alphabet.  Such  dictionaries  have 
no  practical  interest.     This  applies  with  still  greater  force  to 


1 42     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

comparative  dictionaries,  such  as  Fick's  Indogermanisches  wbr- 
terbuch. 

Most  of  our  larger  English  dictionaries  are  also  compromises 
between  an  expanded  dictionary  and  an  abridged  cyclopedia. 
The  fundamental  distinction  between  a  dictionary  and  a 
cyclopedia  is,  that  the  dictionary  has  to  explain  words,  the 
cyclopedia  has  to  explain  things.  The  main  function  of  the 
dictionary  is  to  identify  each  word  with  its  meaning  or  meanings, 
and  give  the  details  of  its  linguistic  use  as  far  as  they  do  not 
fall  entirely  and  exclusively  under  the  province  of  grammar. 
This  is  clearly  shown  in  the  use  we  make  of  dictionaries  of 
foreign  languages.  If  we  are  ignorant  of  the  meaning  of  the 
French  word  fleur,  we  look  it  up  in  our  French-English 
dictionary,  where  we  find  the  English  translation  '  flower,'  with- 
out any  further  comment,  it  being  assumed  that  we  know  what 
a  flower  is.  We  feel  that  the  translation  is  a  surer  guide  to  the 
meaning  than  the  most  elaborate  definition.  In  an  English 
dictionary  for  English  people  the  same  method  of  translation  is 
followed  as  far  as  possible  :  commence  and  purchase  are  defined 
by  being  translated  into  the  simpler  '  begin '  and  '  buy,'  and  we 
fall  back  on  definition  only  when  absolutely  obliged  to  do  so. 
Some  of  the  more  naive  among  the  older  dictionaries  openly 
give  up  the  attempt  to  define  by  such  evasions  as  telling  us  that 
dog  is  'the  name  of  a  well-known  animal.'  Even  Walker's 
celebrated  definition  of  a  flea  as  '  a  small  insect  of  remarkable 
agility'  would  be  of  little  use  to  any  one  who  did  not  know 
already  what  a  flea  was. 

But  it  may  happen  that  in  reading  French  we  come  across 
the  name  of  some  flower  that  is  not  found  out  of  France,  or,  ai 
any  rate,  not  in  England,  so  that  when  we  look  up  the  word  in 
the  French  dictionary,  the  only  explanation  we  find  is  name 
of  a  flower '  with,  perhaps,  the  botanical  name,  which  probably 
conveys  no  meaning  to  our  minds;  we  have  not,  therefore, 
learnt  anything  from  the  dictionary  beyond  what  we  could 
probably  have  gathered  from  the  context  without  any  further 
help.  Nevertheless,  the  dictionary  has  done  everything  in  its 
power  to  identify  the  word  with  the  thing  expressed  by  it ;  it  is 
our  want  of  knowledge  of  the  thing  itself  which  prevents  us 
from  profiting  by  the  dictionary's  identification.  If  we  look  up 
the  botanical  name  in  a  cyclopedia,  we  can  acquire  a  more  or 
less  definite  idea  of  the  thing  itself— the  flower. 


THE   DICTIONARY  143 

There  can  be  no  question  of  the  usefulness  and  convenience 
of  the  brief  explanations  of  the  ideas  and  objects  expressed  by 
rare  words  which  our  larger  dictionaries  give :  these  explana- 
tions afford  the  reader  enough  information  to  enable  him  to 
form  an  idea  of  the  real  nature  of  the  thing  represented  by  the 
unfamiliar  word  without  obliging  him  to  wade  through  a  sea  of 
detail. 

But  it  is  a  question  whether  it  would  not  be  better  to  publish 
such  information  in  a  separate  book  than  to  mix  it  up  with  the 
legitimate  material  of  a  dictionary — namely,  the  identification  of 
familiar  ideas  with  the  words  which  express  them.  An  edu- 
cated Frenchman  just  beginning  English  is  ignorant  of  the 
meaning  of  the  commonest  verbs  and  adjectives  in  English,  but 
he  will  not  require  to  be  told  what  oxygen  is,  or  how  lithography 
is  carried  on.  It  is  not  meant  that  these  words  should  be 
excluded  from  a  practical  dictionary ;  on  the  contrary,  they  are 
examples — especially  the  latter — of  a  numerous  class  of  words 
which  form  a  debateable  ground  between  necessary,  everyday 
words  and  purely  special  and  technical  words. 

A  further  reason  for  separating  the  special  or  encyclopediac 
from  the  general  or  lexical  words  lies  in  the  different  treatment 
they  require.  While  the  former  demand,  or,  at  least,  allow,  a 
more  or  less  elaborate  and  lengthy  description  of  the  thing 
they  denote,  accompanied,  perhaps,  with  pictures  or  diagrams, 
they  are  generally  barren  from  the  linguistic  point  of  view,  for 
they  offer  neither  varied  shades  of  meaning  nor  irregularities  of 
form,  nor  do  they  enter  into  idiomatic  combinations  or  special 
grammatical  constructions.  With  the  lexical  words  the  relations 
are  reversed  :  the  greater  the  number  of  irregularities  of  form  a 
word  offers,  and  the  more  complex  and  varied  its  meanings  and 
idiomatic  combinations  and  special  constructions  are,  the  more 
indispensable  for  expressing  ideas,  and  the  more  independent 
of  encyclopediac  treatment  it  is  sure  to  be. 

We  arrive,  then,  at  the  result  that  for  purposes  of  practical 
study  of  modern  languages  we  require  dictionaries  which  are 
strictly  limited  to  the  modern  language,  and  exclude  all 
encyclopediac  elements  —  that  is,  all  words  of  which  it  is  con- 
ceivable that  an  educated  native  might  say  that  he  had  never 
seen  them  in  literature  or  that  he  did  not  know  what  they  meant. 
Such  a  dictionary  would,  of  course,  include  debateable  words, 
unless  it  were  intended  for  very  elementary  purposes,  in  which 


144     THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

case  it  might  exclude  even  such  words  as  abacus,  habeas  corpus, 
iambic,  nabob,  oxygen. 

But  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  lay  down  any  general  prin- 
ciples by  which  we  could  exclude  all  encyclopediac  words 
without  hesitation,  and  the  ordinary  compromise  has  its  practical 
advantages. 

Pronouncing   Dictionaries 

Most  dictionaries  of  modern  languages  are  at  the  same  time 
pronouncing  dictionaries,  the  pronunciation  being  indicated 
either  by  the  addition  of  stress-marks  and  other  diacritics,  or 
by  a  complete  phonetic  transliteration  of  each  word,  the  last 
method  being  the  only  practical  one  with  such  languages  as 
English  and  French.  Separate  pronouncing  dictionaries  are 
the  most  convenient  for  reference.  It  might  be  worth  while  to 
shorten  them  by  the  omission  of  all  words  in  frequent  use, 
which  no  one  could  help  knowing  who  had  learnt  the  language 
in  a  phonetic  transcription,  but  it  would  be  difficult  to  draw  the 
line.  A  complete  pronouncing  dictionary  ought  to  include 
proper  names. 

The  usual  arrangement  in  a  pronouncing  dictionary  is  to  give 
the  words  in  their  nomic  spelling  and  add  the  phonetic  tran- 
scription. Michaelis  and  Passy's  Dictionnaire  phonktique  de  la 
langue  Francaise  is  an  interesting  example  of  the  reverse  order, 
which  is  more  scientific,  but  less  convenient  for  reference. 

We  have  hitherto  assumed  that  the  dictionary  cc/ers  the 
whole  field  of  the  language  it  deals  with.  A  dictionary  which 
deals  only  with  the  words  occurring  in  certain  definite  texts  is 
called  a  glossary.  Of  such  nature  are  the  glossaries  to  primers 
and  readers.  Glossaries  admit  of  the  same  variety  of  arrange- 
ment and  scale  of  size  and  fullness  as  complete  dictionaries. 
Such  glossaries  as  those  to  Grein's  edition  of  the  Old  English 
poetry  and  to  Windisch's  Altirisc/.e  texte  are  on  the  scale  of  a 
large  scientific  dictionary. 

The  field  of  a  dictionary  may  also  be  diminished  negatively 
— by  excluding  certain  classes  of  books.  This  can  only  be 
done  in  dead  languages  like  Latin,  where  we  have  excellent 
school  dictionaries  such  as  Smith's,  restricted  to  the  vocabulary 
of  the  books  read  by  schoolboys,  which  are  numerous  enough 
to  give  the  complete  elementary  vocabulary  of  the  language. 


THE   DICTIONARY  145 

Such  an  abridgement  has  the  great  advantage  of  making  the 
dictionary  smaller  without  diminishing  its  efficiency  for  its 
special  purpose.  The  practice  of  cutting  down  a  big  dictionary 
by  simply  omitting  all  quotations  and  shortening  the  definitions 
and  other  details  results  in  an  inferior  book  of  the  type  of 
Liddell  and  Scott's  Abridged  Greek-English  Lexicon. 

Fullness 

Most  dictionaries  contain  much  that  is  superfluous.  Many 
of  them,  while  excluding  idioms  and  other  really  indispensable 
details,  retain  hundreds  of  compound  and  derivative  words 
which  any  one  acquainted  with  the  meanings  of  their  elements 
can  understand  and  form  himself  without  any  difficulty  and 
with  perfect  certainty.  Such  a  word  as  hat/ess,  for  instance, 
has  no  more  claim  to  be  included  in  a  practical  English 
dictionary  than  the  phrase  without  a  hat  has.  The  same 
applies  also  to  most  of  the  compounds  found  in  German  and 
Dutch  dictionaries.  Thus  in  a  Dutch  dictionary  I  find  nearly 
half  a  column  of  words  such  as  tijgerbek,  '  mouth  of  a  tiger,' 
tijgerkop,  '  head  of  a  tiger,'  tijgerpoot,  '  foot  of  a  tiger,'  tij^cren, 
'  belonging  to  a  tiger.'  So  also  the  explanation  of  such  German 
compounds  as  knopfmacher,  '  button-maker,'  salzsteucr,  '  tax  on 
salt,'  is  for  most  practical  purposes  superfluous.  Not  till  a 
compound  or  derived  word  has  developed  a  meaning  which 
cannot  be  inferred  from  the  meanings  of  its  elements  is  it 
necessary  to  give  it  an  independent  place  in  the  dictionary. 
Even  in  an  exhaustive  thesaurus  it  is  not  necessary  to  do  more 
than  simply  enumerate  self-interpreting  derivative  and  com- 
pound words  under  the  first  element  without  definition  or 
translation. 

Besides  these  '  half-superfluous '  words,  all  dictionaries  contain 
a  large  number  of  words  which  might  safely  be  omitted  from  a 
dictionary  intended  for  foreigners  on  the  simple  ground  that 
many  educated  speakers  of  the  language  in  question  might  be 
found  who  have  never  met  with  them,  or,  at  any  rate,  have  for- 
gotten their  meaning.  Some  of  these  are  encyclopediac  words 
(p.  142),  some  are  completely  obsolete,  some  are  coinages  of 
some  more  or  less  obscure  writer  which  no  one  else  has  ever 
used  or  quoted,  and  some,  lastly,  are  simply  mistakes — spurious, 
non-existent  words.     As  a  specimen  of  the  way  in  which  our 

L 


146     THE  PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

dictionary-compilers  heap  up  useless  material — mainly,  it  would 
seem,  to  be  able  to  boast  of  '  having  ten  thousand  words  more 
than  any  other  dictionary  ' — I  may  quote  the  following  series 
of  words  taken  in  their  order  without  omission  or  addition  from 
an  English  dictionary  for  foreigners  published  not  so  very  long 
ago :  bezan,  bezant,  bezel,  bezoar,  bezola,  bezonian,  bezzle,  bhow- 
anee,  bkung,  bia,  triangulate,  biangulatcd,  biatigulotts,  biangular. 
A  student  might  read  English  literature  for  ten  or  twenty  years 
without  meeting  with  any  of  these  words,  although  some  of 
them  are  quite  genuine. 

Such  words  might  be  collected  into  a  special  dictionary  for 
occasional  reference,  the  space  gained  in  the  ordinary  dic- 
tionary being  then  utilized  for  the  fuller  presentation  of  idioms 
and  other  necessary  details. 

Most  dictionaries  are  not  at  all  liberal  in  giving  space  to 
idioms  and  phrases.  When  they  are,  they  ought  to  exercise  the 
same  criticism  as  with  single  words.  A  practical  elementary 
dictionary  for  foreigners  ought  to  exclude  all  completely  obsolete 
phrases  and  idioms ,  and  all  dictionaries,  whether  for  foreigners 
or  natives,  ought  to  let  the  reader  know  whether  each  idiom  is 
still  in  use  or  not.  As  a  specimen  of  idioms  which  foreigners 
are  taught  to  regard  as  genuine  modern  colloquialisms,  I  will 
quote  the  following  choice  expressions  which  I  find  under  the 
word  back  in  an  English  dictionary  for  foreigners  published  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  :  the  back  side  of  a  knife  \  a 
strong  back  =  '  a  rich  man '  |  /  can  make  neither  back  nor  edge 
of  him  |  to  show  one's  back.  =  '  act  in  a  cowardly  manner '  |  to 
beat  a  person  back  and  belly.  I  doubt  also  whether  many 
English  people  know  what  dancing  the  Paddington  frisk  is, 
which  the  same  dictionary  gives  as  an  idiomatic  expression  for 
being  hanged.  In  none  of  these  cases  does  this  dictionary 
give  any  indication  of  the  idiom  being  at  all  antiquated  or 
obsolete. 

Conciseness 

The  greatest  drawback  to  the  use  of  a  dictionary  is  bulki 
ness.  The  mere  physical  labour  of  pulling  volume  after 
volume  of  a  big  dictionary  off  the  shelf  and  then  replacing 
them  is  alone  enough  to  deter  the  student  from  the  attempt  to 
utilize  the  material  stored  up  in  them.     And  few  can  spare  the 


THE   DICTIONARY  147 

time  to  search  through  the  mass  of  material  accumulated  under 
the  common  words  ;  so  that  such  dictionaries  are  used  mainly 
as  sources  of  information  about  rare  and  encyclopediac  words. 

However  much  the  scope  of  a  dictionary  may  be  reduced  by 
rigid  adherence  to  one  period  of  the  language,  and  by  exclusion 
of  everything  extraneous  or  superfluous,  it  is  always  worth 
while  to  reduce  its  bulk  still  further  by  carrying  brevity  and 
conciseness  as  far  as  is  consistent  with  clearness  and  convenience. 

The  first  requisite  is  a  sense  of  proportion,  by  which  the 
amount  of  space  taken  up  by  a  word  is  proportionate  to  its 
importance  from  a  linguistic,  not  from  a  historical  or  scientific 
or  any  other  extraneous  point  of  view.  The  test  of  this  in  an 
ordinary  dictionary  is  the  fullness  of  treatment  of  the  com- 
monest words  and  the  relatively  small  space  given  to  rare  words. 
A  short  dictionary  or  glossary  which  gives  whole  columns  to  his- 
torical or  biographical  details,  and  dismisses  prepositions  in  a 
few  lines,  shows  the  want  of  proportion  in  its  extreme.  The 
glossary  to  Derembourg  and  Spiro's  Chrestomathie  elementaire 
de  I'Arabe  litteral  is  an  example  of  this  want  of  proportion. 

The  next  condition  of  conciseness  is  the  systematic  use  of 
contractions.  Thus  in  my  Student's  Dictionary  of  Anglo-Saxon 
instead  of  the  lengthy  w.  dat.  of  pcrs.  and  gen.  of  thing  I  write 
simply  wag.,  which  is  unambiguous  and  easy  to  remember, 
'  especially  as  I  shorten  dative  itself  into  d.  Again,  in  the  same 
dictionary,  by  adding  to  each  strong  verb  the  number  of  its 
class,  I  dispense  with  the  addition  of  str.  vb.,  while,  at  the  same 
time,  the  omission  of  any  number  shows  that  the  verb  is  weak. 

Much,  too,  may  be  done  in  the  way  of  shortening  and  saving 
space  by  the  use  of  marks,  such  as  the  familiar  *  to  indicate 
hypothetical  or  non-existent  forms,  f  to  indicate  archaic  or 
poetical  words  or  forms.  Muret's  Encyclopedic  English- German 
Dictionary  and  the  other  similar  dictionaries  published  by  the 
firm  of  Langenscheidt  in  Berlin  make  a  systematic  and  exten- 
sive use  of  these  and  other  devices  for  securing  the  greatest 
possible  conciseness  and  convenience. 

Surveyability 

Surveyability — what  in  German  is  called  iibersichtlichkeit — is 
the  greatest  help  in  finding  a  word  in  a  dictionary.  It  implies, 
in  the  first  place,  getting  as  much  as  possible  on  to  each  page. 


148    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

The  pages  ought,  therefore,  to  be  square  and  three-columned, 
except  in  '  pocket-dictionaries,'  most  of  which,  however,  will 
hardly  go  into  an  ordinary  pocket.  The  other  condition  of 
surveyability  is  the  judicious  use  of  varieties  of  type  and  special 
marks  to  catch  the  eye.  Lastly,  everything  that  tends  to  pro- 
mote conciseness  necessarily  works  in  the  same  direction. 

The  larger  the  dictionary,  the  more  urgent  does  this  con- 
sideration become.  When  a  word  extends  over  several  pages 
of  quotations,  only  occasionally  interrupted  by  the  definitions 
of  the  meanings,  it  is  often  a  matter  of  great  difficulty  to  find 
any  one  meaning  in  this  sea  of  quotations,  as  every  one  knows 
who  has  had  occasion  to  consult  Littre's  large  French  diction- 
ary or  the  New  English  Dictionary.  This  difficulty  is  met  in  an 
ingenious  manner  in  the  Langenscheidt  dictionaries.  In  them 
the  meanings  and  definitions  are  given  in  a  lump  without  any 
quotations,  being  merely  numbered ;  then  the  quotations  are 
given  in  a  lump  immediately  after  the  body  of  meanings  and 
definitions,  the  number  of  the  definition  being  repeated  before 
each  group  of  quotations  by  which  it  is  illustrated,  the  body 
of  quotations  being  marked  by  a  vertical  waving  line  on  one 
side  of  it. 

Meanings 

The  first  business  of  a  dictionary  is  to  give  the  meanings  of 
the  words  in  plain,  simple,  unambiguous  language.  There  must 
be  no  '  etymological  translation '  (p.  88),  no  translation  into 
obsolete  or  dialectal  words.  When  we  look  up  lace  in  an  Old- 
English  dictionary  and  find  it  translated  '  leech '  as  well  as 
'  physician,'  we  ought  to  be  quite  sure  that  leech  here  has  its 
genuine  modern  meaning,  and  is  not  a  mere  repetition  of  the 
meaning  of  the  other  word. 

Again,  some  dictionary-makers  think  it  necessary  to  translate 
every  slang  or  colloquial  word  or  expression  in  one  language 
into  a  slang  word  or  expression  in  the  other  language.  The  result 
is  that  they  sometimes  use  some  provinrial  or  obsolete  word  or 
expression  which  may  be  quite  unintelligible  to  the  majority  of 
their  readers,  and,  indeed,  may  soon  become  unintelligible  to  all 
of  them,  for  nothing  becomes  obsolete  sooner  than  a  certain  class 
of  slang  colloquialisms.  Most  languages  are  so  ambiguous  in 
themselves  that  it  is  folly  to  go  out  of  one's  way  to  make  them 
more  so;    and    in  a  dictionary   everything   is   detached  and 


THE   DICTIONARY  149 

isolated,  so  that  there  is  but  little  context  to  help.  In  fact, 
without  the  help  of  quotations  it  is  almost  impossible  to  define 
meanings  with  certainty.  As  I  remark  in  the  preface  to  my 
Students  Dictionary  of  Anglo-Saxon,  the  best  method  is  to  add 
part  of  the  context  in  (  ) :  thus  I  explain  adragan  by  '  draw 
(sword),'  seomian  by  'hang  heavy  (o/ clouds),'  where  the  italic 
of  stands  for  '  said  of  or  '  applied  to.' 

Quotations 

Quotations  are  next  in  importance  to  definitions.  Indeed, 
in  a  large  dictionary  or  thesaurus,  the  quotations  are  the  dic- 
tionary, and  their  arrangement  is  a  matter  of  almost  subordinate 
importance.  They  cannot,  of  course,  be  given  with  any  great 
fullness  in  most  short  dictionaries.  But  in  some  cases  a  quota- 
tion is  both  shorter  and  clearer  than  a  definition.  All  sentences 
that  have  anything  of  the  character  of  proverbs  or  formula? 
deserve  a  place  in  every  dictionary.  Such  sentences,  indeed, 
can  hardly  be  regarded  as  quotations,  any  more  than  idioms, 
which  are  as  much  a  part  of  the  common  stock  of  the  language 
as  the  words  themselves  :  like  them,  they  cannot  be  constructed 
apriori. 

References 

References  in  a  full  dictionary  of  a  dead  language  for  scien- 
tific purposes  should  be  to  the  line  and  page  of  the  text  where 
the  form  occurs  or  whence  the  quotation  is  taken.  But  as  the 
number  of  the  page  may  vary  in  different  editions,  it  is  better 
to  number  the  paragraphs,  the  reference  to  which  is  enough,  if 
they  are  short ;  if  the  paragraphs  are  long,  or  if  accuracy  of 
reference  is  required,  the  lines  of  each  paragraph  may  be  num- 
bered, and  a  reference  made  to  the  line  as  well  as  the  paragraph. 
In  referring  to  such  a  work  as  the  Saxon  Chronicle,  the  lines 
of  each  year  should  be  numbered  separately  in  this  way  except, 
of  course,  where  a  year  takes  only  a  few  lines.  In  my  Ang/o- 
Saxon  Reader  each  piece  is  numbered  from  beginning  to  end, 
and  in  the  glossary  the  references  are  to  the  number  of  the 
piece  and  its  line.  The  advantage  of  such  methods  of  reference 
over  that  of  referring  to  the  page  is  not  only  that  the  references 
are  independent  of  the  size  and  number  of  the  pages  of  different 
editions,  but  also  that  the  reader  soon  learns  to  remember  each 


150    THE  PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

piece  by  its  number,  while  in  the  case  of  such  a  work  as  the 
Saxon  Chronicle  it  is  of  the  greatest  importance  to  know  what 
year  each  reference  belongs  to. 

Where  exact  reference  is  impracticable  or  superfluous,  it  is 
still  a  great  advantage  to  know  at  least. what  book  or  author  or 
what  larger  dictionary  a  word  is  taken  from — thus,  in  an  English 
dictionary  it  may  make  a  good  deal  of  difference  whether  a  word 
is  taken  from  Bailey's  dictionary  or  from  some  such  writer  as 
Rudyard  Kipling.  Marks  such  as  f  often  serve  the  purpose  of 
such  general  references. 

Grammatical  and  Other  Information 

Grammatical  information  is  especially  necessary  in  the  case 
of  constructions,  such  as  what  case  or  preposition  a  verb  or 
adjective  takes  after  it,  and  of  irregularities. 

Information  about  pronunciation  and  varieties  of  spelling  is 
indispensable  in  many  languages.  In  a  Chinese  dictionary 
every  character— that  is,  every  word — must  be  transliterated. 
In  Giles's  great  Chinese-English  dictionary  every  character — ■ 
of  which  this  dictionary  contains  about  eleven  thousand — is 
transliterated  into  the  pronunciation  of  eleven  dialects  with 
their  tones,  the  standard  rhyming  word  being  also  given. 

This  last  example  might  be  followed  with  advantage  in  many 
other  dictionaries— at  any  rate,  so  far  as  to  mark  words  that 
occur  in  rhyme,  or  at  the  end  of  the  line ;  thus  in  such  a  text 
as  the  Middle- English  Ormulum  the  fact  of  a  dissyllabic  word 
occurring  at  the  end  of  the  line  shows  that  the  last  syllable  but 
one  is  long ;  so  if  a  word  like  fader  were  quoted  from  the 
Ormulum  in  such  a  dictionary  without  any  indication  of  its 
occurring  at  the  end  of  the  line,  this  would  be  an  argument  in 
favour  of  the  a  being  short.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  in  a 
full  scientific  English  dictionary  information  should  be  given  as 
to  the  history  of  the  pronunciation  of  each  word  whenever  it 
shows  any  special  features  or  irregularity  of  development.  It 
is,  for  instance,  much  more  the  business  of  such  a  dictionary 
to  tell  us  how  Hart,  Bullokar,  and  the  rest  pronounced  than 
to  give  us  the  cognate  forms  of  the  words  in  the  other  Germanic 
languages. 


THE   DICTIONARY  151 

Arrangement,  Word-order 

The  ordinary  alphabetic  arrangement  followed  in  European 
dictionaries  has  the  merit  of  'be'mg  fixed  and  uniform,  with  a 
few  exceptions,  such  as  the  Scandinavian  practice  of  putting  a 
and  0  together  at  the  end  of  the  alphabet.  The  German 
practice  of  ignoring  the  distinction  between  a  and  a,  0  and  0,  is 
more  practical. 

But  this  alphabetic  arrangement  has  no  other  merits,  for 
the  order  of  the  letters  is  entirely  arbitrary.  It  is  a  question 
whether  it  would  not  be  worth  while  to  alter  it  in  one  respect 
in  which  it  would  be  easy  to  agree,  that  is,  in:  putting  all  the 
vowels  together :  a,  cb,  e,  i,  0,  0.  u,  y,  b,  c,  d  .  .  .  It  is  most 
inconvenient  in  an  Old  English  dictionary  to  follow  such  a 
word  as  ierfc  through  its  various  spellings  eerfe,  erfe,  ierfe,  irfs, 
yrfe  from  one  end  of  the  alphabet  to  the  other.  And  similar 
fluctuations  may  occur  in  any  language  which  has  not  a  fixed 
orthography.  It  is  also  unfortunate  that  c,  k,  q,  x  do  not  follow 
in  immediate  succession.  Any  further  attempts  to  remodel  the 
order  of  the  alphabet  on  phonetic  principles  would  be  a  failure  ; 
for,  much  as  we  may  envy  the  Sanskrit  alphabet  its  rational 
order,  it  would  be  hardly  possible  to  choose  between  the  great 
variety  of  more  or  less  reasonable  arrangements — as,  for 
instance,  between  tdnpbm  and  tdpbnm.  But  we  are  always  at 
liberty  to  make  certain  obvious  concessions  to  the  peculiarities 
of  each  language,  such  as  putting  all  words  beginning  with  k 
under  c,  or  vice-versa. 

All  deviations  from  the  traditional  alphabetic  order  which  are 
not  recommended  by  considerations  of  direct  utility  and  con- 
venience should  be  regarded  with  suspicion,  unless,  of  course, 
they  amount  to  a  complete  abandonment  of  the  alphabetic 
order,  and  the  substitution  of  a  logical  for  a  formal  arrangement. 
To  this  we  shall  return  hereafter.  Otherwise,  as  the  whole 
justification  of  the  existing  alphabetic  order  is  its  convenience, 
there  can  be  no  rational  motive  in  departing  from  it  except 
convenience.  All  such  innovations  as  separating  long  from 
short  vowels — ab,  ac,  ad  .  .  ,db,ac  .  .  .  instead  of  ab,  ab,  ac,  ac — 
on  the  ground  that  this  will  oblige  the  learner  to  pay  attention 
to  distinctions  of  quantity,  are  inconsistent  with  the  first  principles 
of  the  alphabetic  arrangement. 

But  different  languages  require  different  arrangements.     In 


152     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

English  we  expect  to  find  every  word  in  the  dictionary  simply 
by  looking  it  up  under  its  initial  letter.  In  Welsh,  with  its 
initial  consonant-mutations,  this  will  not  do  :  we  may  have  to 
look  up  such  forms  as  dad  and  nhad  under  tad,  and  fam  under 
mam.  Even  in  German  we  cannot  expect  to  find  genommen 
under  g-,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  we  do  find  gebirge  under  g-, 
not  under  b-.  As  ge-  is  a  still  more  moveable  prefix  in  Old  Eng- 
lish, it  seems  legitimate  to  disregard  it  entirely  in  the  alphabetic 
arrangement  of  an  Old  English  dictionary,  and  make  it  an 
invariable  rule  that  all  words  beginning  with  ge-  are  to  be  sought 
under  the  letter  following  the  e.  The  practical  justification  of 
this  arrangement  is  that  it  saves  much  space,  and  also  saves 
waste  of  time  in  referring  to  two  entries  of  what  is  practically 
one  and  the  same  word. 

Again,  in  the  Semitic  languages — where  one  root  branches 
off  into  a  great  variety  of  remarkably  regular  and  transparently 
symmetrical  derivatives  formed  partly  by  vowel-changes,  partly 
by  prefixes — it  becomes  practically  necessary  to  group  all  these 
formations  under  their  root.  Thus,  in  an  Arabic  dictionary 
there  is  no  difficulty  in  finding  such  apparently  disconnected 
words  as  salarn,  islam,  muslim  under  their  common  root  slm. 
With  a  few  cross-references  for  disguised  and  irregular  forms 
this  method  works  very  well,  and  effects  a  great  saving  of 
space. 

In  the  first  half  of  this  century,  during  the  intoxication  which 
followed  the  rapid  development  of  comparative  philology,  many 
attempts  were  made  to  arrange  the  vocabularies  of  different 
Germanic  languages  under  roots,  as  in  Ettmuller's  Lexicon 
Auglosaxonicum,  where,  for  instance,  the  words  beran,forberafi, 
gebyrd,  beam,  together  with  many  others,  are  all  included  under 
beran.  A  milder  form  of  this  arrangement  consists  in  uniting 
words  into  families  comprising  all  the  words  which  are  clearly 
connected  according  to  the  laws  of  the  language  itself.  Thus 
beam  and  gebyrd  are  evidently  connected  with  beran,  but  we 
cannot  say  that  they  are,  from  an  exclusively  Old  English  point 
of  view,  so  clearly  connected,  as  gebyrd,  for  instance,  is  with 
gebvrdlic. 

In  its  still  more  cautious  form,  this  arrangement  would  confine 
itself  to  grouping  together  regular  derivatives  and  compounds, 
such  as  synn,  synfull,  syngian,  forsyngod  in  Old  English.  There 
is  a  tendency  now  to  carry  this  out  wherever  it  does  not  involve 


THE   DICTIONARY  153 

any  great  disturbance  of  alphabetic  order  ;  that  is,  in  Old  English 
to  keep  beran  amdfor&eran,  syngian  and  forsy //god,  apart,  but  to 
put  synfull  under  synn. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  there  is  a  certain  antagonism  in 
this  respect  between  the  compiler  and  the  user  of  a  dictionary. 
There  is  in  the  compiler  a  tendency  to  try  experiments,  to 
subordinate  mechanical  regularity  of  arrangement  to  higher 
considerations  of  a  logical  character,  to  sacrifice  convenience 
to  brevity,  and  to  expect  what  he  calls  '  a  certain  amount  of 
intelligence '  in  the  user  of  a  dictionary,  and  also,  perhaps,  an 
elementary  knowledge  of  the  language.  The  latter,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  apt  to  expect  an  impossible  combination  of 
brevity,  small  size  and  cheapness  with  such  a  fullness  of  infor- 
mation and  cross-references  as  will  enable  him  to  read  the 
language  without  any  previous  grammatical  study. 

Every  complete  bilingual  dictionary  is  twofold :  a  German- 
English  implies  as  its  complement  an  English-German  dictionary. 
For  many  purposes  it  is  convenient  to  have  both  dictionaries 
on  the  same  page — thus  German-English  on  the  upper,  English- 
German  on  the  lower  half.  In  this  way  there  is  only  one 
alphabet  throughout  the  whole  book.  In  fact,  this  arrangement 
ought  always  to  be  adopted  whenever  the  two  dictionaries  are 
not  made  into  separate  volumes,  which,  of  course,  depends 
partly  on  their  size. 

Logical   Dictionary 

Just  as  there  is  a  distinction  between  formal  and  logical 
grammar,  so  also  we  can  have  a  logical  as  opposed  to  the 
ordinary  conventional  formal  or  alphabetical  dictionary ;  that 
is,  instead  of  seeking  the  meanings  of  words,  we  may  seek  the 
words  which  express  meanings — given  the  meaning,  we  may 
inquire  what  are  the  words  and  phrases  by  which  it  is  expressed. 
Thus,  instead  of  taking  the  word  good,  and  enumerating  its 
various  meanings  of  '  pleasant  to  the  taste,  morally  good,  pro- 
perty, possessions,'  and  so  on,  we  may  take  such  an  idea  as 
that  of  '  morally  good,'  and  enumerate  the  various  words  and 
phrases  by  which  it  can  be  expressed,  such  as  good,  goodness, 
well,  virtue,  morality,  moralist,  bad,  vice. 

This,  then,  is  the  logical  or  synthetic  as  opposed  to  the 
formal  or  analytic  side  of  the  study  of  word-meanings,  and  a 


154    THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

logical  or  ideological  dictionary  is  one  in  which  words,  idioms, 
and  phrases  are  grouped  under  the  different  categories  of  space, 
time,  matter,  sensation,  emotion,  etc.,  with  as  much  logical 
continuity  as  is  possible. 

The  best  example  we  have  of  such  a  dictionary  is  Roget's 
vrell-known  Thesaurus  of  English  Words  and  Phrases,  which 
first  appeared  in  1852,  after  nearly  fifty  years'  preparation.  In 
giving  a  short  account  of  the  plan  of  this  work,  I  quote  from 
the  third  edition  of  1855,  as  giving  the  author's  own  matured 
views,  although  there  are  later  editions  revised  by  other  hands. 
The  words  are  grouped  under  the  following  heads  : — 

I.  Abstract  relations :  existence,  relation,  quantity,  order, 
number,  time,  change,  causation. 

II.  Space  :  generally,  dimensions,  form, 
in.  Matter  :  generally,  inorganic,  organic. 

iv.  Intellect :  formation  of  ideas,  communication  of  ideas. 

v.  Volition :  individual,  intersocial. 

vi.  Affections  :  generally,  personal,  sympathetic,  moral, 
religious. 

In  the  body  of  the  work  words  expressing  opposite  and 
correlative  ideas  are  arranged  in  two  parallel  columns  on  the 
same  page,  so  that  each  group  of  expressions  can  be  contrasted 
with  that  which  forms  its  antithesis.  Such  ideas  as  '  increase 
and  decrease,'  '  easy  and  difficult,'  '  truth  and  falsehood,' 
'  teacher  and  learner,'  are  contrasted  in  this  way. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  vocabulary  is  so  far  defective 
that  under  '  matter '  the  author  gives  only  the  words  of  general 
meaning :  he  does  not  go  into  details  by  enumerating  the 
different  minerals,  etc.  Nor  does  he  give  lists  of  plants, 
animals,  etc. 

The  following  extract  will  give  an  idea  of  the  material  given 
in  this  dictionary  and  the  method  of  its  arrangement : — 

3.  Time  with  referetice  to  an  Effect  or  Purpose. 

132.  Earlyness,  timeliness,  '  133.  Lateness,  tardiness,  slow- 
punctuality,  readiness,  prompt-  ness,  delay,  cunctation,  procras- 
ness,  promptitude,  expedition,  tination,  deferring,  postpone- 
quickness,  haste,  acceleration,  ment,  dilation,  adjournment, 
hastening  (684),1  anticipation.  I  prorogation. 

1  These  numbers  refer  to  places  where  the  same  or  allied  ideas  are 
grouped  under  other  categories. 


THE   DICTIONARY 


J55 


Suddenness,  abruptness  (in). 

V.  To  be  early,  to  be  in  time, 
etc.,  to  keep  time. 

To  anticipate,  forestall. 

To  expedite,  hasten,  haste, 
quicken,  press,  dispatch,  accele- 
rate, precipitate,  hurry,  bustle. 

Phr.  To  take  time  by  the 
forelock  ;  to  be  beforehand  with  ; 
to  steal  a  march  upon  ;  to  be 
pressed  for  time. 

Adj.  Early,  prime,  timely, 
punctual,  matutinal,  forward, 
ready,  quick,  expeditious,  sum- 
mary, prompt,  premature,  pre- 
cipitate, precocious,  prevenient, 
anticipatory. 

Sudden,  abrupt  (in),  unex- 
pected (508),  subitaneous,  ex- 
tempore. 

Adv.  Early,  soon,  anon,  be- 
times, rath,  apace,  eft,  eftsoons, 
in  time,  ere  long,  before  long, 
punctually,  to  the  minute. 

Phr.  In  good  time  ;  in  mili- 
tary time  ;  in  pudding  time  ;  at 
sunrise  ;  with  the  lark. 

Beforehand,  prematurely,  be- 
fore one's  time,  in  anticipation. 

Suddenly,  abruptly,  at  once, 
on  the  point  of,  at  short  notice, 
extempore  ;  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment,  instanter. 


Phr.  The  Fabian  policy,  La 
Medecine  expcctante. 

Protraction,  prolongation,  lee- 
way. 

Phr.  An  afternoon  man. 

V.  To  be  late,  etc.,  tarry, 
stay,  wait,  bide,  take  time,  dally, 
dawdle,  linger,  loiter,  bide  one's 
time  (275,  683). 

To  stand  over,  lie  over. 

To  put  off,  delay,  defer,  lay 
over,  suspend,  shift  oft,  stave 
off,  waive,  remand,  postpone, 
adjourn,  procrastinate,  prolong, 
protract,  draw  out,  prorogue. 

Phr.  To  tide  it  over ;  to 
push,  or  drive  to  the  last ;  to 
let  the  matter  stand  over. 

Adj.  Late,  tardy,  slow,  be- 
hindhand, postliminious,  post- 
humous, backward,  unpunctual, 
belated. 

Delayed,  etc.,  suspended,  in 
abeyance. 

Adv.  Late,  backward,  after 
time,  too  late,  sine  die. 

At  length,  at  last,  at  sunset. 

Slowly,  leisurely,  deliberately. 

Phr.  Nomnn  firematnr  in 
annum  j  a  day  after  the  fair  ; 
at  the  eleventh  hour  ;  after 
meat,  mustard  ;  after  death,  the 
doctor. 


Roget's  book  was  adapted  to  German  by  Dr.  D.  Sanders, 
the  well-known  German  lexicographer,  under  the  title  of 
Dcntscher  Sprachschatz,  from  which  I  quote  an  extract  corre- 
sponding to  the  beginning  of  the  above  one  : — 


Nr.  91.  Das  Friihsein. 
Substantiva. 
a.  das  Friihsein  ;  Friihzeitig- 
keit,  etc. ;  Friihe  ;  Morgenfriihe, 
etc.  ;  Eile  u.s.w.  ;  Schnelligkeit  ; 
Geschwindigkeit  ;  Flinkheit  ; 
Hurtigkeit  ;  Gewandtheit  ; 


Nr.  92.    Das  Spatsein. 

Substantiva. 

a.  das  Spatsein,  Zuspatsein, 
Zuspatkommen,  etc.  ;  Verspa- 
tung  ;  Langsamkeit ;  Saumse- 
ligkeit  ;  Saumsal  ;  Zdgerung ; 
Verzdgenmg  ;      Verzug,     etc.  ; 


156    THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 


Abtrift  ;  Aufschiebung  ;  Auf- 
schub  ;  Hinausschiebung  u.s.w. ; 
Hinhaltung  ;  Verschleppung  ; 
Protraktion  ;  Vertagung  ;  Pro- 
krastination  ;  Perendination  ; 
Prorogation  ;  Prolongation  ; 
Verlangerung ;    das    Lavieren  ; 


das  Abwarten 
Politik  ; 


ab-,  zuwartendc 


Zeitworter. 

b.  spat,  zu  spat  kommen  ;  .  .  . 
nicht  aus  der  Stelle  (vom  Fleck) 
kommen  ;  schlendern  ;  zogern  : 
.  .  .  auf  die  lange  Bank  (Bahn) 
schieben  ;  auf  die  lange  Bank 
ziehen,  spielen,  weisen,  bringen ;  t 
in  die  lange  Truhe  legen  ;  in  die 
Lange  hinausziehen  ;  .  .  . 


Raschheit  ;  rasches,  expedites 
Wesen,  etc.  ;  Bereitheit ;  Piinkt- 
lichkeit  ;  Exactheit  ;  Promp- 
theit  ;  promptitude,  etc.  ;  iibe- 
reiltes  Wesen  ;  Uberhastung  ; 
Hast  ;  Uniiberlegtheit  ;  Be- 
schleunigung,  etc.  ;  Vorweg- 
nahme  ;  Anticipation,  etc. 

Zeitworter. 

b.  friih  statthaben,  stattfin- 
den,  etc.  ;  .  .  .  Nichts  versau- 
men,  verpassen  ;  die  Gelegen- 
heit  bei  der  Stirnlocke  fassen, 
etc.  ;  .  .  .  die  Kelle  nicht  an  der 
Pfanne  kleben  lassen  ;  sich 
beeilen  ;  eilen,  etc.  ;  sich  iiber- 
eilen  ;  sich  hasten  ;  sich  iiber- 
hasten  ;  sich  iiberstiirzen  ;  .  .  . 

These  extracts  will  give  an  idea  of  the  nature  of  the  problem, 
and  its  extent  and  difficulties.  It  will  also  be  observed  that 
the  work  is  a  genuine  thesaurus  :  it  gives  all  the  words  and 
phrases  the  author  could  collect,  whether  old  or  new,  literary 
or  colloquial.  It  is,  therefore,  quite  unfitted  for  the  use  of  a 
foreigner  learning  English,  just  as  Sanders'  adaptation  would 
be  useless  as  a  guide  to  the  practical  study  of  German  idioms. 
It  was  intended  by  the  author  '  to  facilitate  the  expression  of 
ideas,  and  assist  in  literary  composition ' — for  which  purpose  it 
has  been  found  very  useful. 

As  regards  the  general  question  of  the  classification  of  words 
according  to  the  ideas  they  express,  I  may  quote  the  following 
remarks  from  a  paper  of  mine  on  Words,  Logic,  and  Grammar 
(Philological  Society's  Transs.,  1875-6):— 

'  In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  ultimate 
ideas  of  language  are  by  no  means  identical  with  those  of 
psychology,  still  less  with  those  of  metaphysics.  Language  is 
not  in  any  way  concerned  with  such  psychological  problems  as 
the  origin  of  our  ideas  of  space  and  matter ;  for  at  the  time 
when  language  was  evolved,  these  conceptions  were  already 
stereotyped  in  the  form  of  simple  ideas,  incapable  of  any  but 
deliberate  scientific  analysis.  Even  such  universally  known 
facts  as  the  primary  data  of  astronomy  have  had  little  or  no 


THE   DICTIONARY  157 

influence  on  language,  and  even  the  scientific  astronomer  no 
more  hesitates  to  talk  of  "  the  rising  of  the  sun  "  than  did  the 
astrologers  of  ancient  Chaldaea.  Language,  in  short,  is  based 
not  on  things  as  we  know  or  think  them  to  be,  but  as  they 
seem  to  us. 

'  But  though  the  categories  of  language  do  not  require  so 
deep  an  analysis  as  those  of  psychology,  they  are,  on  the  other 
hand,  far  more  complicated.  Each  word  we  use  suggests  a 
large  number  of  ideas  at  once,  varying  always  according  to  the 
context,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  extreme  difficulty  to  select  the 
really  characteristic  and  essential  idea  or  ideas,  which  alone 
can  be  made  the  basis  of  classification.  It  is  the  great  defect 
of  Roget's  system  that  he  often  classes  his  words  by  some 
extraneous  idea  that  the)'  suggest.  Thus  food  is  considered  as 
something  purely  mechanical,  as  a  mode  of  '  insertion,'  and 
hence  is  included  under  "  directive  motion,"  whereas  it  clearly 
comes  under  "  volitional  functions  of  living  beings,"  with,  of 
course,  a  cross-reference  to  "  insertion  "  and  its  other  mechanical 
associations.  .  .  .  For  many  words  special  compound  cate- 
gories are  required.  It  is,  for  instance,  misleading  to  class 
sharp,  edge,  knife  together  under  "  superficial  form,"  as  Roget 
does ;  the  essential  difference  between  knife  and  the  other  two 
is,  that  while  they  denote — or  can  denote — natural  objects, 
knife  always  implies  human  agency  :  we  require,  therefore,  a 
special  category  "  inanimate  things  +  volition,"  or  something 
of  the  sort.  Similarly  meadow  as  opposed  to  heath  requires  a 
special  complex  category.' 

The  double  difficult)-  of  classifying  the  words  and  of  finding 
them  naturally  suggests  a  compromise,  such  as  that  adopted  by 
Boissiere  in  his  1  nctionnaire  analogique  de  la  langtte  Franfaise. 
In  this  work  each  page  is  divided  into  an  upper  and  a  lower 
portion  by  a  cross-line.  The  upper  portion  contains  all  the 
words  in  alphabetic  order ;  the  lower  portion  gives  the  head- 
words for  the  logical  categories,  also  in  alphabetical  order.  If 
the  word  sought  in  the  upper  portion  is  at  the  same  time  the 
head-word  of  a  category,  it  will  be  found  in  that  capacity 
immediately  below ;  otherwise,  a  direction  is  given,  '  see  such 
and  such  a  category.'  To  keep  the  two  portions  of  the  page 
abreast  of  one  another,  the  author  has  been  obliged  to  sub- 
divide his  categories  to  an  extent  which  would  not  otherwise 
be  tolerated;    thus  arbre  and  forit  are  separated  from   one 


158    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

another.  The  words  under  each  category  are  again  arranged 
in  alphabetical  order ;  thus  under  arbre  the  words  are  given  in 
two  groups,  one  a  list  of  trees — ablanier,  abricot  .  .  . — the 
other  comprising  the  more  general  words  relating  to  trees : 
abreuvoir,  abroiiti,  agrhnent,  allee  .  .  .  To  make  reference 
easier,  the  words  are  arranged  in  vertical  columns.  The 
inevitable  separation  of  words  that  ought,  from  a  logical  point 
of  view,  to  come  together  in  these  lists  is  to  some  extent 
remedied  by  a  system  of  numbering,  by  which  all  the  words 
forming  a  group  of  their  own  within  the  alphabetically  arranged 
group  have  the  same  number  prefixed  to  them,  so  that  they  can 
be  quickly  found  by  running  the  eye  along  the  margin. 

But  all  attempts  to  combine  such  opposed  systems  of  classifi- 
cation as  the  alphabetic  and  the  logical  must  be  unsatisfactory. 
It  seems  better  to  carry  out  the  logical  arrangement  unhampered 
by  any  concessions  to  the  alphabetical  order,  and  then  give  an 
alphabetic  index,  as  is  done  in  Roget's  Thesaurus.  The  more 
perfect  the  logical  arrangement,  the  less  need  will  there  be  for 
such  an  index. 

The  scope,  fullness,  size,  and  other  features  of  a  logical 
dictionary  may  be  varied  in  the  same  way  as  with  a  formal 
dictionary. 

Its  size  will,  of  course,  depend  on  whether  it  includes  quota- 
tions or  excludes  them,  as  Roget  does,  who  only  admits  phrases 
and  idioms  in  addition  to  single  words. 

Study  of  the  Vocabulary  of  a  Language 

At  first,  the  meanings  of  words  will  be  learnt  mechanically 
one  by  one  by  associations  with  their  context.  In  every 
language  there  are  a  certain  number  of  words  which  the  learner 
remembers  at  once,  either  because  they  are  borrowed  from  or 
are  cognate  with  words  already  familiar  to  him  in  his  own 
or  some  other  language,  or  through  some  chance  resemblance 
to  known  words  (p.  91).  These  words  are,  as  it  were,  centres 
round  which  other  words  crystallize,  each  new  association 
leading  to  further  associations,  till  at  last  the  chief  part  of  the 
elementary  vocabulary  of  the  language  forms  a  solid  mass  of 
associations  each  connected  in  various  ways  with  others. 

To  any  one  practised  in  the  use  of  a  dictionary  the  trouble 
and  time  expended  in  looking  up  words  in  such  a  glossary  as 


STUDY   OF   THE   VOCABULARY  159 

that  to  my  Anglo-Saxon  Primer — which  takes  up  only  twenty- 
four  pages — is  but  slight,  but  to  a  beginner  it  may  be  an  irk- 
some and  slow  process.  Indeed,  even  to  the  most  practised 
dictionary-user  the  peculiar  discontinuity  and  abruptness  of  the 
associations  formed  and  broken  in  a  minute  between  the  words 
in  the  text  and  the  words  in  the  dictionary  becomes  after  a  time 
wearying  to  the  brain  and  irritating  to  the  nerves. 

If  the  beginner  starts  with  a  dictionary  or  glossary  of  wider 
scope,  so  that  the  chief  meanings  of  the  commoner  words  are 
given,  he  must  inevitably  waste  still  more  time  in  looking  his 
words  up.  And  if  he  conscientiously  reads  over  each  article  in 
his  dictionary,  he  takes  away  still  more  time  from  his  study  of 
the  texts  themselves.  It  must  also  be  remembered  that  the 
only  parallel  or  supplementary  uses  and  meanings  of  a  word 
which  it  is  profitable  for  him  to  study  are  those  which  he  has 
already  met  with :  it  only  confuses  his  mind  to  have  to  take 
note  of  those  with  which  he  has  no  practical  acquaintance. 
Now  it  is  evident  that  if  the  only  use  of  looking  up  a  word  in 
the  dictionary  is  the  chance  of  being  referred  either  directly  or 
indirectly  to  some  other  passage  in  the  text  he  is  reading,  it 
would  be  simpler  to  give  him  that  reference  at  once  without 
sending  him  to  the  dictionary.  Widgery,  in  his  Teaching  of 
Languages  in  Schools  (p.  45),  thus  describes  the  process,  as 
carried  out  by  the  ordinary  boy  : — 

'  He  has,  say,  twenty  lines  of  Latin  to  do.  After  reading  the 
first  sentence  through,  he  picks  out  the  subject  and  then  the 
verb ;  he  turns  up  the  dictionary  for  his  noun,  and  after  sensibly 
skipping  the  dubious  or  antiquated  etymology,  begins  to  wonder 
whether  the  meaning  is  under  LA.,  1a,  or  II.  B.  (b) ;  on  the 
road  he  has  to  turn  back  sometimes  to  the  three  pages  of 
abbreviations  at  the  beginning.  However,  he  gets  a  meaning 
at  last,  and  the  process  is  repeated  with  the  verb  and  the  other 
words,  with  a  flying  reference,  perhaps,  to  the  grammar  for 
some  irregular  gender.  '1  hen  comes  a  hunt  through  the  index 
to  the  syntax  —that  is,  if  he  is  lucky  enough  to  have  an  index — 
and,  at  last,  the  meaning  is  fairly  clear;  frequently,  however, 
this  is  by  no  means  the  case,  and  he  dives  into  the  dictionary 
and  grammar  again.  This  is  a  danger  to  which  conscientious 
boys  are  liable :  by  patient  and  misdirected  ingenuity,  they 
arrive  at  a  false  construction,  but  the  labour  of  finding  it  was  so 
great  that  the  first  impression  remains  stronger  than  the  later 
correction. 


160    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

'  The  good  boy  works  in  this  fashion ;  the  ordinary  boy 
leaves  his  grammar  at  school,  skims  through  the  lines  as  quickly 
as  he  can,  writes  down  the  words  that  are  utterly  foreign  to 
him,  turns  up  the  dictionary,  puts  down  the  first  meaning  he 
comes  across,,  and  is  quite  happy  next  day  if  he  escapes  the 
Task  Book.' 

Notes  instead  of  Dictionary. — In  accordance  with  the 
principles  of  comparison  and  progressive  gradation,  I  have, 
therefore,  in  my  First  Steps  in  Anglo-Saxon,  substituted  for  the 
glossary  an  explanation  of  each  new  word  in  the  notes,  or  else 
a  reference  to  an  earlier  explanation.  The  reference  is  some- 
times not  to  the  explanation  itself,  but  to  the  last  passage  in 
which  the  word  occurs,  where  a  reference  to  the  explanation 
itself  is  found.  When  a  word  has  occurred  often  enough  to 
imprint  itself  firmly  on  a  careful  reader's  memory,  the  references 
cease. 

One  good  result  of  this  method  is  that  the  learner,  instead  of 
being  able  to  rely  on  finding  a  word  in  the  glossary  if  he  forgets 
it,  has  every  inducement  to  master  each  page  of  the  book 
thoroughly  before  proceeding  to  the  next.  As  remarked  before 
(p.  134),  the  same  principle  may  be  carried  out  with  the 
examples  in  a  grammar :  in  the  grammar  to  Fint  Steps  the 
examples  are  not  translated  after  the  first  few  pages,  but  ex- 
plained in  the  notes  exactly  in  the  same  way  as  the  texts 
themselves. 

In  First  Steps  the  notes  are  put  together  at  the  end  of  the 
book,  not  at  the  foot  of  each  page.  The  former  is,  of  course, 
the  less  convenient  arrangement,  but  it  has  the  advantage 
of  affording  the  learner  a  better  opportunity  of  testing  his  pro- 
gress, while  at  the  same  time  it  gives  him  an  inducement  to 
read  the  notes  carefully. 

Interlinear  Translation.  — Great  use  was  made  in  the 
Middle  Ages  of  interlinear  glosses  or  translations,  of  which  the 
eleventh-century  colloquy  of  ^Elfric  in  Latin  with  an  Old- 
English  translation  is  a  well-known  and  favourable  example. 
This  method  was  revived  in  modern  times  under  the  name  of 
'  the  Hamiltonian  system.'  It  is  now  little  used,  as  being  too 
mechanical,  and  as  tending  to  deaden  the  learner's  linguistic 
sense  by  forcing  his  native  language  into  unnatural  construc- 
tions and  order  of  words.     Idiomatic  translation  accompanied 


STUDY   OF  THE  VOCABULARY  161 

by  parsing  has  all  the  advantages  without  the  defects  of  the 
interlinear  method. 

Use  of  the  Dictionary. — We  now  come  to  the  dictionary 
stage.  It  may  be  asked,  Why  use  a  dictionary  at  all  during  the 
systematic  course  of  study  ?  Why  not  leave  it  to  the  finished 
student,  who  has  begun  to  read  the  literature  on  his  own  account, 
and  to  whom  a  dictionary  is,  therefore,  really  a  necessity  ? 

But  when  the  learner  has  acquired  a  fairly  extensive  know- 
ledge of  the  ordinary  vocabulary  of  the  language,  he  feels  an 
instinctive  desire  to  unite  and  systematize  his  scattered  impres- 
sions. Just  as  collecting  the  scattered  inflections  of  a  word 
into  a  grammatical  paradigm  helps  him  to  remember  the  separate 
inflections,  so  also  gathering  the  different  meanings  of  words 
together  helps  him  to  remember  and  discriminate  these  meanings. 

Formal  Study  of  Meanings. — Just  as  formal  precedes 
logical  syntax,  so  also  the  study  of  meanings  ought  to  begin 
from  the  formal  side ;  for  it  is  difficult  to  distinguish  the  mass 
of  often  formally  unconnected  words  and  phrases  by  which  a 
given  group  of  ideas  is  expressed — good,  virtue,  etc. — without 
some  knowledge  of  the  various  meanings  of  each  word,  and 
the  way  in  which  these  meanings  are  connected. 

This  preliminary  study  of  word-meanings  may  be  regarded 
as  a  sort  of  lexical  syntax.  It  is  only  concerned  with  those 
words  whose  variety  of  meanings  causes  real  difficulty,  such  as 
particles,  the  more  primitive  verbs  and  adjectives,  and  some 
nouns  of  more  general  or  abstract  meaning,  such  as  ??ian,  thing, 
manner,  way.  In  this  way  it  might  include  many  words  which 
have  an  equal  right  to  a  place  in  the  dictionary  and  in  the 
grammar,  such  as  the  prepositions. 

This  formal  study  of  word-meanings  by  no  means  involves 
reading  through  an  ordinary  dictionary,  or  even  reading  part 
of  it.  As  the  total  vocabulary  of  the  learner  even  up  to  the 
end  of  the  third  stage  need  not  exceed  three  thousand  words, 
and  as  the  meanings  of  many  of  these  would  not  require  any  special 
study,  his  '  Primer  of  formal  word-meanings  '  would  have  to  deal 
only  with  a  small  fraction  of  the  words  in  an  ordinary  dictionary. 

Under  these  circumstances,  there  would  be  hardly  any  induce- 
ment to  keep  the  alphabetic  order  of  the  words,  for  the  book 
would  not  be  for  reference,  but  for  study,  and  would,  besides, 
have  an   index.     There  would,  therefore,  be   no  obstacle  to 

M 


1 62     THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

arranging  the  words  in  any  logical  order  which  was  found  most 
to  facilitate  the  study  of  each  word's  meaning.  The  result 
would  be  something  like  an  improved  dictionary  of  synonyms 
— expanded  in  some  respects,  curtailed  in  others. 

Logical  Study  of  Meanings. — The  logical  or  synthetic 
study  of  meanings  includes  the  whole  vocabulary — by  which  we 
mean,  for  the  present,  the  limited  vocabulary  of  which  we  have 
just  spoken.  It  is  not,  however,  absolute  y  necessary  that 
every  concrete  word  should  be  included  in  it — such  words,  for 
instance,  as  the  different  names  of  trees.  A  typical  selection 
of  such  words  would  be  enough.  We  have  seen  that  even 
Roget's  Thesaurus  does  not  include  such  words  (p.  154). 

The  learner's  '  Logical  primer  of  word-meanings  '  would  be 
an  abridgement  of  a  full  logical  thesaurus.  It  would  consist  of 
a  selection  of  the  most  frequent  and  indispensable  words  and 
idioms  arranged  under  their  logical  categories  with  illustrative 
sentences  wherever  necessary.  These  sentences  would,  as  far 
as  possible,  be  connected  logically  one  with  another  so  as — 
occasionally,  at  least — to  form  a  continuous  narrative  or  descrip- 
tion. The  Colloquial  sentences  in  my  Elementarbuch  des  gespro- 
chenen  Englisch  will  give  an  idea  of  how  this  can  be  done, 
although  it  has  been  carried  out  only  imperfectly.  Franke's 
Phrases  de  tons  les  jours  gives  a  similar — but  fuller — collection 
for  the  study  of  French,  but  the  sentences  are  more  disconnected 
than  in  my  Colloquial  sentences,  from  which  Franke  apparently 
got  the  idea. 

The  utility  of  such  a  course  of  study  will  depend  mainly  on 
how  far  the  learner  is  prepared  beforehand  ;  for  it  presupposes 
some  practical  knowledge  of  the  meaning  of  most  of  the  words 
and  word-combinations.  It  would  be  a  mistake  to  try  to 
master  the  vocabulary  of  a  language  straight  off  by  learning 
such  a  book  by  heart.  The  associations  must  be  formed  more 
gradually,  and  from  a  more  varied  context.  But  when  the 
necessary  foundation  has  once  been  laid,  a  systematic  study  of 
the  meanings  already  learnt  cannot  fail  to  strengthen  the  asso- 
ciations between  sound  and  sense,  and  revive  associations 
which  may  have  become  weak,  or  even  have  been  lost  entirely ; 
for  even  in  the  best-planned  course  of  reading  it  is  not  possible 
to  ensure  each  individual  word  and  idiom  its  due  amount  of 
repetition  at  regular  intervals,  by  which  alone  it  can  be  retained 


STUDY   OF  THE   VOCABULARY  163 

in  the  memory.  Such  a  study  will  also  teach  the  learner  to 
realize  delicate  shades  of  meaning  of  which  he  would  otherwise 
be  conscious  either  vaguely  or  not  at  all. 

The  logical  primer  of  word-meanings  would  naturally  be 
used  for  reference  also,  and  for  this  purpose  would  be  provided 
with  an  alphabetical  index.  But  when  we  have  arrived  at  a 
satisfactory  classification  of  word-meanings,  it  is  to  be  hoped 
learners  will  be  trained  to  find  their  way  through  a  logical 
dictionary  or  vocabulary  without  such  help. 

Such  a  selection  would  have  the  great  advantage  over  the 
material  given  in  artificial  '  methods  '  such  as  Ollendorff's  and 
Gouin's,  that  it  would  give  the  actual  language  in  all  its  aspects, 
not  a  one-sided  selection  embodying  ideas  which  no  one  either 
hears  expressed  by  others  or  has  occasion  himself  to  express. 

The  full  logical  dictionary — the  ideological  thesaurus — would 
also  have  its  practical  uses  for  the  foreign  learner,  but,  of 
course,  only  for  those  who  are  well  advanced.  Such  a  com- 
plete dictionary  would  enable  a  foreigner  to  master  the  vocabu- 
lary of  any  new  branch  of  knowledge,  any  new  pursuit  at  a 
short  notice,  for  it  would  give  all  the  technical  terms  and 
phrases  required  in  their  natural  connection. 

Such  a  dictionary  would  be  useful  to  natives  as  well.  As  it  is, 
Roget's  Thesaurus  is  much  used  by  literary  workers  and  others 
who  wish  to  find  the  most  suitable  expressions  for  their  ideas. 

As  Roget  himself  observes,  a  comparative  dictionary  on  this 
plan  would  be  of  the  greatest  utility  and  interest,  both  from  a 
practical  and  a  scientific  point  of  view.  Apart  from  any 
systematic  study  of  etymology  and  the  development  of  word- 
meanings,  it  is  often  interesting  to  run  through  the  various 
meanings  of  a  word  in  some  remote  language,  and  observe 
how  the  characteristics  and  life  of  the  speakers  of  it  are  faith- 
fully reflected  in  their  vocabulary.  Thus  I  remember  the  first 
word  I  saw  in  a  Sanskrit  dictionary  was  tap  ov  an  a  or  tapasavana, 
'  forest  inhabited  by  ascetics,'  and  the  next  word  had  something 
to  do  with  an  elephant.  If  we  open  an  Arabic  dictionary  at 
random,  we  may  expect  to  find  something  about  a  camel :  '  a 
young  camel,'  '  an  old  camel,'  '  a  strong  camel,'  '  to  feed  a 
camel  on  the  fifth  day,'  'to  feel  a  camel's  hump  to  ascertain  its 
fatness,'  all  these  being  not  only  simple  words,  but  root-words. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

TEXTS;   THE   READING-BOOK 

When  the  sounds  of  a  language  have  once  been  mastered,  the 
main  foundation  of  its  study  will  be  connected  texts :  the 
reader  will  henceforth  be  the  centre  of  study,  to  which  the 
grammar,  dictionary,  and  other  helps  must  be  strictly  sub- 
ordinated. It  is  only  in  connected  texts  that  the  language 
itself  can  be  given  with  each  word  in  a  natural  and  adequate 
context. 

Classification  of  Texts 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  different  kinds  of  texts  from 
the  point  of  view  of  their  fitness  to  serve  as  means  of  linguistic 
training.  We  have  also  to  consider  the  question  of  sequence 
— to  determine  the  order  in  which  the  different  kinds  of  texts 
should  be  read. 

There  are  certain  broad  distinctions  of  mood  and  style  which 
we  may  consider  first.     In  the  following  pairs  of  extremes — 

concrete,  objective — abstract,  subjective 
matter  of  fact,  dry — imaginative,  poetical,  ideal 
commonplace,  trivial — strange,  sensational 
juvenile — adult 

the  first  members  are  more  suited  for  purposes  of  elementary 
linguistic  teaching  than  the  second,  as  being  more  likely  to 
comply  with  the  primary  requisites  of  directness,  clearness, 
simplicity,  and  familiarity.  Of  the  other  extremes,  the  imagina- 
tive tends  to  develope  literary  peculiarities,  and  so  as  to  diverge 
from  the  colloquial,  while  the  strange  and  sensational  tends  to 
take  us  away  from  the  familiar.  Lastly,  all  literature  suited 
for  young   children  necessarily  suits   most    of  our   linguistic 

164 


TEXTS;   THE   READING-BOOK  165 

requirements ;  even  when  it  becomes  imaginative  and  abstract, 
it  still  retains  the  qualities  of  simplicity  and  directness. 

Of  wit  and  humour  we  need  only  remark  that  they  are 
generally  colloquial  in  their  expression,  and  generally  deal  with 
familiar  and  homely  themes,  and  are  therefore  well  suited  for 
our  purposes — that  is,  if  they  are  modern.  Unfortunately 
nothing  becomes  sooner  obsolete  than  wit  and  humour. 

As  regards  their  subject-matter,  we  may  distinguish  three 
main  classes — 

(1)  Descriptions  (of  things  and  phenomena),  statements  of 
abstract  laws  or  principles  such  as  those  of  arithmetic ; 

(2)  Narratives,  tales,  stories; 

(3)  Dialogues,  conversations — 

together  with  combinations  of  these,  as  when  a  story  or  novel 
is  made  up  partly  of  narrative,  partly  of  dialogue,  partly  of 
description,  or  when  descriptions  and  narratives  are  introduced 
into  a  dramatic  work. 

The  most  important  distinction  between  dialogue  on  the  one 
hand  and  purely  descriptive  and  narrative  pieces  on  the  other 
hand  is  a  purely  grammatical  one,  namely,  that  while  in  the 
latter  two  the  verb  appears  only  in  the  third  person,  it  appears 
in  all  three  persons  in  the  former. 

There  is  also  a  grammatical  distinction  between  descriptive 
and  narrative  pieces,  namely,  that  the  former  favours  the  present, 
the  latter  the  past  tenses.  As  regards  the  tenses,  the  dialogue 
form  shows  the  same  variety  as  in  the  persons,  especially  as 
regards  its  free  use  of  the  future. 

From  a  grammatical  point  of  view  it  is  evident  that  dialogues 
ought  to  come  last,  as  being  most  complex  On  the  whole,  it 
seems  that  descriptions  ought  to  come  first,  because  it  is  con- 
venient to  begin  the  study  of  the  verb  with  its  present  tenses, 
and  also  because  dialogue  can  be  excluded  from  them,  which 
is  often  difficult  in  narratives.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  no 
historical  presents  ought  to  be  allowed  in  the  narrative  pieces ; 
otherwise  the  greatest  confusions  may  arise  between  present 
and  past  tenses. 

Examples  of  almost  purely  descriptive  texts  will  be  found  in 
my  Elementarbuch.  The  following  are  some  of  the  subjects 
treated  of: — 


1 66    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

nature :  the  earth,  the  sea,  the  river  Thames,  the  sun,  the 
seasons,  the  months,  the  days  of  the  week,  light,  colours. 

man  :  different  races  of  men,  tools  and  weapons,  food,  houses, 
clothes,  language. 

Other  descriptions  may  be  found  in  my  Primer  of  Spoken 
English :  sun,  moon,  rain.  These  are  adapted  from  Mrs. 
Barbauld,  and  will  therefore  serve  to  show  how  the  treatment 
of  the  same  subjects  may  vary  according  to  the  individuality 
of  the  writer.  The  descriptive  texts  in  the  Elementarbuch  are 
mainly  adapted,  as  far  as  the  matter  is  concerned,  from  Huxley's 
Physiography,  Tylor's  Anthropology,  and  Wright's  Domestic 
Manners  and  Sentiments  in  the  Middle  Ages,  but  the  language 
is  entirely  my  own. 

Of  the  following  descriptions,  the  first  is  from  the  Primer  of 
Spoken  English,  the  other  from  the  Elementarbuch.  It  will  be 
observed  that  I  sometimes  give  my  specimens  in  nomic,  some- 
times in  phonetic  spelling,  for  the  benefit  of  both  classes  of 
readers — phonetic  and  unphonetic.  In  the  phonetically  written 
pieces  I  omit  stress-marks,  etc. 

rein 

c  rein  kamz  fr9m  Ss  klaudz.  luk  3t  Souz  blaek  klaudz  !  hau 
faast  Sei  muwv  slo?? !  nau  Sei  v  hidn  S3  san  .  .  .  Ss  z  3  litl  bit 
sv  bluw  skai  stil.  nau  5s  z  nou  bluw  skai  3tol :  it  s  ol  blaek  wiS 
83  klaudz.  it  s  veri  daak,  laik  nait.  it  1  rein  suwn.  nau  it  s 
bigini?7  ts  rein,  whot  big  drops  !  Ss  daks  3  veri  glaed,  bst 
5s  litl  bssdz  3  not  glaed  :  Sei  gou  sn  Jelts  Ssmselvz  ands  Ss 
trijz.  nau  Ss  rein  z  ouvs.  it  wsz  ounli  3  Jaus.  nau  S3  flausz 
smel  swijt,  3n  Ss  san  /ainz,  3n  Ss  litl  bssdz  sir/  3gen,  3nd  it  s  not 
sou  hot  3z  it  woz  bifor  it  reind.' 

'  The  air  is  always  full  of  water,  though  we  cannot  see  it, 
because  it  is  in  the  state  of  vapour,  like  the  gas  we  burn  in  the 
streets  and  in  our  houses.  The  heat  of  the  sun  draws  up  this 
vapour  from  all  the  water  it  can  get  at — especially  the  sea. 
When  the  air  is  cooled,  the  moisture  it  contains  becomes  visible 
in  the  form  of  clouds  or  mist.  A  cloud  consists  of  very 
small  drops  of  water,  light  enough  to  hang  in  the  air  without 
falling,  like  dust.  Mist  is  nothing  but  clouds  close  to  the  earth  ; 
and  a  cloud  is  nothing  but  a  mist  or  a  fog  high  up  in  the  air. 
A  fog  is  only  a  thick  mist.  London  fog,  as  it  is  called,  is 
mixed  with  smoke,  which  gives  it  a  yellow  colour.  When  the 
drops  run  together,  and  get  so  heavy  that  they  fall  to  the 
ground,  we  have  rain.' 


TEXTS;   THE   READING-BOOK  167 

A  short  description  may  be  disguised  in  the  form  of  a  riddle. 

A  special  class  of  descriptive  texts  are  those  which  deal 
with  abstract  ideas,  especially  numbers,  elementary  notions  of 
arithmetic  and  geometry,  space,  boundaries,  shape.  These 
may  be  treated  somewhat  as  in  Clifford's  Common-sense  of  the 
Exact  Sciences. 

Another  class  of  descriptions  are  those  involving  action. 
This  kind  of  text  may  assume  the  character  of  a  narrative, 
as  in  the  section  on  '  Food'  in  my  Elementarbuch  (§  10),  which 
begins,  'At  first  men  had  to  live  on  what  they  found  wild. 
They  used  to  gather  fruits  .  .  .'  Generally  they  have  more 
of  the  dramatic  character,  as  in  the  description  of  a  fair  in 
Passy's  Elementarbuch  (Nr.  7),  of  which  I  quote  the  beginning  : 

lafwaar 

1  a  ty  xame  vy  yn  fwaar  ?  i  j  an  a  yn  tu  lez  a  da  not  vilaa^. 
o  mwtf  d  3yje  o  vwa  vniir  da  tu  le  koote  booku  d  graad  vwatyyr 
ki  rsaabl  a  de  vago  d  /ame  d  f«r.  doda  j  a  de  famiij  da 
boemje :  ez  i  viiv  kom  da  de  meezo.  i  vo  tuus  syr  la  graad 
plas,  e  la  i  kostniiiz  de  barak  u  i  mootro  tut  sort  do  Jooz 
kyrj00z  :  de  bett  feros,  de  Jje  sava,  dez  om  ki  fo  de  turdofors 
ttsttera.    s  f  tre  drool  do  vwaar  tu  sa.' 

In  narrative  pieces  the  first  thing  to  be  considered  is  their 
length.  Three- volume  novels  are  evidently  not  suited  for 
beginners.  The  other  extreme  is  represented  by  anecdotes, 
which  play  a  great  part  in  most  reading-books.  Anecdotes  may 
be  historical,  moral,  humorous.  They  may  be  in  a  purely 
narrative  form,  or  they  may  be  partly  or  entirely  in  the  dialogue 
form.  The  following  are  time-honoured  specimens  of  different 
kinds  of  anecdotes  : — 

Lakonische   Verordnung. 

Alexander  schrieb  an  die  Griechen,  dasz  sie  ihn  fur  einen 
Gott  erkennen  sollten.  Die  Lacedemonier  faszten  demnach 
einen  Beschlusz  in  folgenden  Worten :  '  Weil  Alexander  ein 
Gott  sein  will,  so  sei  er  einer.' 

Dergute  Mensch  tmd  die  bosen  Menschen. 

Jemand  bedauerte  Rousseau  wegen  der  Menge  seiner 
Verfolger,  und  setzte  hinzu  :  '  Die  Menschen  sind  bose.'     '  Die 


1 68     THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

Menschen."'  antwortete  der  Bedauerte,  '  ja,—  aber  der  Mensch 
ist  gut.' 

Die  rothe  Nase. 

Ein  Greis,  der  vom  Weintrinken  eine  rothe  kupferige  Nase 
hatte,  sagte  einst  zu  seinem  Enkel,  einem  Knaben  von  sechs 
Jahren,  der  alle  Speisen  ohne  Brod  asz  :  '  Liebes  Kind,  du 
musst  hiibsch  Brod  essen;  Brod  macht  die  Wangen  roth.' 
'  Dann  hast  du  wohl  viel  Brod  geschnupft,  Grossvaterchen,' 
sagte  der  Knabe. 

Was  ist  der  Mensch. 

Plato  definirte  den  Menschen,  ein  zweibeiniges  Thier,  ohne 
Federn.  Hierauf  rupfte  jemand  einem  Huhn  die  Federn  aus 
und  sagte  zu  Plato  :  '  Dieses  is  auch  ein  Mensch.' 

The  anecdote  in  its  shortest  form  is  apt  to  degenerate  almost 
into  a  definition — as  in  the  last  example — or  proverb,  so  that 
at  last  it  shrinks  almost  to  a  single  sentence,  and  loses  all  claim 
to  the  title  of  '  connected  text.'  Such  anecdotes  ought  not  to 
be  given  by  themselves,  but  only  as  insertions  into  longer 
connected  texts,  as  in  §  56  of  my  ElementarbucJi,  where  I  give 
an  anecdote  of  two  Englishmen  and  a  Frenchman  to  illustrate 
the  meaning  of  '  reserve.' 

The  simplest  kinds  of  narrative  pieces  of  moderate  length 
which  at  the  same  time  deal  with  familiar  incidents  are  short 
tales  of  everyday  life,  short  modern  biographies,  fairy  tales. 
As  examples  of  the  simplest  and  most  trivial  type  of  short 
story,  almost  devoid  of  incident,  I  may  mention  (egare  da  la 
forf)  in  Passy's  Elementarbuch  (Nr.  9)  and  ($9  kau9dli  litl  boi) 
in  my  Primer  of  Spoken  English. 

Historical  narratives  are  not  generally  suited  for  our  purposes, 
as  they  generally  deal  with  unfamiliar  subjects,  and  are  often 
necessarily  technical,  as  when  battles  are  described.  Narratives 
of  adventure  are  good  when  the  subjects  and  scenes  are  not 
too  remote.  A  good  specimen  of  a  narrative  of  boyish  adven- 
ture is  (Si  ould  tfaepl)  in  my  Primer  of  Spoken  English,  which 
is,  however,  rather  old-fashioned,  as  it  is  an  adaptation  of  a 
story  by  William  Howitt. 

Special  dialogues  are  not  required  by  the  beginner,  as  there 
is  sure  to  be  some  element  of  dialogue  in  the  narrative  texts. 


TEXTS;   THE   READING-BOOK  169 

Specimens  of  dialogues  in  purely  colloquial  language  will  be 
found  in  my  Primer  of  Spoken  English  under  the  following 
titles  :  Wild  Life,  A  Railway  Excursion,  At  the  Seaside,  Educa- 
tion, Socialism,  Skating.  These  are  not  suited  for  any  but  very 
advanced  foreigners.  Less  difficult  dialogues  will  be  found  in 
my  Elementarbuch.  Dialogues  such  as  these,  which  are  intended 
to  help  the  learner  to  gain  a  general  mastery  of  the  language, 
must  be  distinguished  from  those  which  are  intended  specially 
for  travellers  abroad. 

We  now  have  to  consider  the  requirements  which  these 
different  kinds  of  texts  have  to  satisfy. 

Connectedness 

The  first  requisite  is  that  each  text  should  form  a  connected 
whole,  so  as  to  establish  as  many  associations  as  possible  in 
the  mind  of  the  learner  between  each  word  and  its  context,  and 
in  order  that  each  repetition  of  a  word  in  the  same  text  shall 
strengthen  the  learner's  hold  of  it.  Collections  of  proverbs 
and  riddles  are  objectionable  from  this  point  of  view ;  and  as 
they  are  generally  also  objectionable  on  the  score  of  form,  as 
containing  archaic  words  and  constructions,  besides  being  often 
elliptical  and  otherwise  anomalous  in  form,  they  had  better  be 
omitted  entirely.  Such  a  proverb  as  waste  not,  want  not,  for 
instance,  is  not  modern  English  at  all ;  the  modern  colloquial 
form  would  be  do  not  waste,  and  you  will  not  be  in  want. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  in  some  texts  the  individual  sentences 
are  more  closely  connected  together  than  in  others.  In 
dialogues  there  is  generally  less  logical  continuity  than  in 
descriptions  and  abstract  statements,  especially  arguments  and 
proofs.  The  conversations  of  everyday  life  are  often  dis- 
connected and  elliptical  in  the  highest  degree,  so  that  a  faithful 
reproduction  of  them  would  be  unsuited  for  ordinary  learners. 

These  considerations  are  a  warning  against  carrying  too  far 
the  reaction  against  the  use  of  detached  sentences  in  teaching 
languages.  A  collection  of  detached  sentences,  each  of  which 
is  good  in  itself — that  is,  capable  of  being  isolated  without 
becoming  obscure  — may  be  better  than  a  connected  text  which 
is  obscure  in  language  or  whose  subject  is  unsuitable,  or  a 
dialogue  of  disjointed  and  practically  disconnected  remarks. 


170    THE  PRACTICAL   STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

Length 

The  question  of  the  relative  length  of  the  pieces  in  a  read- 
ing-book depends  partly  on  the  stage  of  progress  of  the  learners. 
At  first  they  can  advance  only  slowly,  and  hence  even  a  mode- 
rate amount  of  variety  can  only  be  secured  by  keeping  the  texts 
short.  If  the  book  is  intended  for  young  children,  there  is  all 
the  more  reason  for  making  them  short. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  possible  to  make  too  great  conces- 
sions to  variety :  an  unbroken  succession  of  very  short  texts  is 
more  wearisome  than  restriction  to  a  single  long  one.  A  great 
part  of  Vietor  and  Dorr's  Efiglisches  Lesebuch  is,  through  the 
excessive  use  of  nursery  rhymes  and  riddles,  little  more  than  a 
collection  of  detached  sentences  in  archaic  English.  Thus,  the 
first  two  pieces  they  give  are — 


'  He  that  would  thrive 
Must  rise  at  five  ; 
He  that  has  thriven 
May  lie  till  seven. 


Early  to  bed  and  early  to  rise 

Makes  a  man  healthy,  and  wealthy,  and  wise.' 

Then  come  some  short  poems,  including,  of  course — 

'  Twinkle,  twinkle,  little  star, 
How  I  wonder  what  you  are  ! 
Up  above  the  world  so  high, 
Like  a  diamond  in  the  sky.' 

Then  Section  II.  begins  with  a  prose  piece,  c  The  fatal  quarrel 
of  saucer,  mug,  and  spoon ; '  then  comes — 


'  Molly,  my  sister,  and  I  fell  out, 
And  what  do  you  think  it  was  about  ? 
She  loved x  coffee,  and  I  loved  tea, 
And  that  was  the  reason  we  could  not  agree.' 

Then  a  poem,  ■  Too  clever ; '  then  another  piece  of  prose,  '  The 
wonderful  pudding ; '  then — 

1  Archaic  for  like. 


TEXTS;   THE   READING-BOOK  171 

6. 

'  Everything  has  an  end  and  a  pudding  has  two. 
The  proof  of  the  pudding  is  in  the  eating. 
Which  is  the  left  side  of  a  round  plum-pudding  ? 


First  come,  first  served. 
Hunger  is  the  best  sauce. 
Enough  is  as  good  as  a  feast. 
Half  a  loaf  is  better  than  no  bread. 
They  that  have  no  other  meat ' 
Bread  and  butter  are  glad  to  eat. 


After  dinner  sit  a  while, 
After  supper  walk  a  mile.' 


Then  a  prose  piece,  '  Food.'  Then  no  less  than  nine  pages 
headed  '  Nursery  Rhymes,  Riddles,'  etc.,  among  which  we 
find  '  This  is  the  house  that  Jack  built,'  '  If  all  the  seas  were 
one  sea,  what  a  great 2  sea  that  would  be  !  .  .  .'  '  Solomon 
Grundy,  Born  on  a  Monday,'  together  with  verses  such  as — 

'  Swan 3  swam  over  the  sea  ; 
Swim,  swan,  swim. 
Swan  swam  back  again ; 
Well  swum,  swan.' 

And  riddles  such  as — 

'  Which  is  the  strongest  day  in  the  week  ? 

•SAVa->I33M  3HV  XS3H  3HX  33V  3SnV039  'AVON/IS 

What  is  that  which  you  and  every  living  person  have  seen,  but 
can  never  see  again  ? 

'AV<XH3XS3A 

What  is  that  which  no  man  ever  yet  did  see,4 
Which  never  was,  but  always  is  to  be  ? ' 

•MOHHOIV-OX 

And  sayings  such  as — 

'  No  rose  without  a  thorn,' 

which  does  not  even  constitute  a  sentence. 

1  Archaic  fox  food.  2  Archaic  for  dig,  large. 

3  Archaic  for  the  swan.  *  Did  see  archaic  for  saw. 


172     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

All  this  is  surely  carrying  the  principle  of  variety  too  far. 
One  does  not  see  how  the  pupils  are  to  carry  away  any  definite 
associations  from  such  jerky  transitions,  in  spite  of  the  care 
taken  by  the  compilers  to  preserve  unity  by  giving  each  section 
a  special  subject,  such  as  '  getting  up  and  going  to  bed,' 
'  meals,'  etc.  But  the  section  '  nursery  rhymes  and  riddles  '  is 
made  up  of  absolutely  detached  pieces,  many  of  which,  as  we 
see,  are  extravagantly  short. 

It  is  evidently  impossible  to  come  to  a  definite  agreement  on 
the  subject  of  length,  for  what  seems  short  to  a  slow,  retentive 
mind  may  seem  intolerably  long  to  a  quicker  or  more  superficial 
one.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  from  this  point  of  view,  that  the 
compiler  of  a  reading-book  ought  to  vary  the  length  of  his 
pieces  on  both  sides  of  the  average  length.  This  average 
length  ought,  from  a  purely  linguistic  point  of  view,  not  to  be 
less  than  a  page  or  two,  and  anything  shorter  ought  to  be  given 
only  exceptionally,  riddles  and  proverbs  being  entirely  excluded 
unless  quoted  in  a  clear  context. 

Clear  Context 

It  is  of  the  greatest  importance  that  each  word — especially 
each  new  word — should,  as  far  as  possible,  have  such  a  context 
as  to  leave  room  for  the  minimum  of  hesitation  as  to  its  mean- 
ing. Thus  the  context  of  the  word  east  in  such  a  statement  as 
the  house  faces  east  may  suggest  to  the  learner  that  east  denotes 
one  of  the  four  quarters,  but  it  will  not  tell  him  which  it  is, 
while  such  a  statement  as  the  sun  rises  in  the  east  and  sets  in  the 
west  enables  him  to  identify  the  quarter  in  an  unmistakeable 
manner  :  indeed,  if  he  only  knows  the  meaning  of  sun  and  rise, 
he  will  be  able  to  infer  the  meaning  of  the  other  three  full 
words  with  almost  complete  certainty.  In  such  a  statement  as 
the  first  day  of  the  week  is  called  Sunday,  the  second  Monday, 
the  third  Tuesday  .  .  .  the  associations  between  the  numbers 
and  the  days  are  so  definite  that  any  one  who  has  learnt  the 
complete  statement  by  heart  in  the  language  he  is  learning  will 
have  no  difficulty  in  recalling  any  one  of  the  words  by  repeating 
the  series  till  he  comes  to  it.  In  this  case  we  have  two  inde- 
pendent associations  of  order—  first,  second  .  .  .  ,  Sunday, 
Monday  .  .  .  — each  of  which  strengthens  the  other. 

We  see  that  where,  as  in  the  last  example,  there  is  a  known 
fixed  order,  the  mere  enumeration  of  the  words  in  this  order 


TEXTS;   THE   READING-BOOK  173 

would  be  enough  to  fix  the  meaning  of  each  word  in  the 
memory— the  mere  repetition  of  Sunday,  Monday,  Tuesday  .  .  . 
by  itself  is  enough  to  teach  us  the  meaning  of  each  word.  But 
if  there  is  no  definite  order  of  associations,  mere  enumeration 
gives  only  the  information  that  a  certain  number  of  words  have 
some  meaning  in  common,  without  affording  the  learner  any 
further  means  of  discriminating  them.  Thus  I  once  saw  an 
elementary  French  reading-book  in  which  the  different  things 
in  a  house  were  simply  enumerated,  thus  '  in  the  kitchen  are 
plates,  dishes,  saucepans,  kettles  .  .  .  ,'  so  there  was  nothing  to 
correct  the  English  learner's  natural  assumption  that  plat  means 
'  plate  '  instead  of  '  dish.'  So  also  with  such  a  statement  as  '  all 
kinds  of  flowers  grow  in  the  fields  :  daisies,  buttercups,  primroses, 
cowslips  .  .  .' 

It  need  scarcely  be  added  that  the  context,  to  be  clear,  must 
be  familiar.  Thus  a  European  beginner  should  not  be  allowed 
to  read  in  a  description  of  scenes  in  the  southern  hemisphere 
that  the  sun  was  hot  because  it  was  the  middle  of  December. 

Limited  Vocabulary 

As  we  have  frequently  had  occasion  to  say,  the  learner's 
vocabulary  should  not  be  large.  Even  up  to  the  end  of  the 
third  stage  he  will  not  require  more  than  three  thousand  words. 
But  these  he  will  command  with  perfect  ease  and  certainty, 
and  will  find  them  enough  to  make  himself  understood  in 
speaking  of  any  topic  of  ordinary  life  without  going  into 
technical  details. 

Those  who  learn  a  language  through  its  literature  often  have 
almost  as  wide  a  vocabulary  as  the  natives,  but  have  no  real 
command  of  the  elementary  combinations,  the  phrases  and 
idioms,  so  that,  as  already  observed,  they  are  often  unable  to 
describe  the  simplest  mechanical  operations,  such  as  '  tie  in  a 
knot,' '  turn  up  the  gas.'  Nor,  when  they  come  to  study  English, 
for  instance,  do  they  know  that  the  antithesis  of  finding  in  the 
spoken  language  is  not  secki?ig  but  looking  for.  So  also,  instead 
of  getting  wet,  they  become  wet.  Those  who  learn  a  language 
on  a  colloquial  basis  generally  have  no  difficulty  in  expressing 
what  they  want  by  idiomatic  paraphrases.  Thus  I  remember 
a  foreign  child  who,  not  knowing,  or  having  forgotten,  the 
name  for  a  '  pen-wiper,'  described  it  without  hesitation  as  the 
thing  you  make  dirty  pens  clean  with.     Such  a  learner,  so  far 


174    THE  PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

from  substituting  seek  for  look  for,  would  probably  not   even 
know  what  the  former  meant. 

The  Most   Necessary   Elements  given  First 

The  more  limited  the  vocabulary,  the  greater  the  care  that 
must  be  exercised  in  its  selection.  It  is  evident  that  the  first 
and  strongest  associations  of  the  learner  ought  to  be  with 
those  elements  of  the  language  which  are  the  common  founda- 
tion of  the  colloquial,  the  literary,  the  familiar,  and  the  scientific 
and  technical  strata  of  the  language.  As  already  remarked,  he 
ought  not  to  be  confronted  with  words  which  would  still  be 
unintelligible  to  him  when  translated  into  his  own  language. 
His  reading-book  ought  not  to  give  him  a  description  of  a 
candle-manufactory.  Even  a  description  of  a  game  of  cricket 
is  out  of  place,  for  few  foreigners  are  likely  to  join  in  it,  and 
such  a  description  would  involve  technicalities  that  even 
Englishmen  might  be  ignorant  of,  or,  at  any  rate,  unable  to 
define  accurately. 

The  distinction  between  necessary  and  unnecessary  idioms 
and  phrases  is  especially  important.  All  proverbial  idioms, 
and  most  of  those  containing  similes,  are  mere  ornaments — 
often  only  vulgar  ornaments — of  speech,  and  therefore  super- 
fluous for  the  foreigner  who  can  only  just  manage  to  express 
himself  in  a  straightforward  way  :  he  requires  only  to  under- 
stand, not  to  be  able  to  use  them  himself.  Equally  superfluous 
are  the  idioms  and  expressions  constituting  slang  or  argot ; 
except  when  what  is  called  slang  really  serves  to  supply  a  want 
— to  give  expression  to  some  idea  which  could  not  otherwise 
be  expressed — in  which  cases  it  ceases  to  be  slang,  and  becomes 
simply  colloquial.  Another  reason  why  foreigners  should  not 
attempt  to  imitate  such  expressions  is  that  they  are  constantly 
changing,  and  nothing  is  more  out  of  place  than  antiquated 
slang. 

But  besides  these,  there  are  thousands  of  idioms  which, 
although  quite  unobjectionable  in  themselves,  are  superfluous 
to  a  beginner  because  they  express  ideas  which  could  be 
expressed  just  as  well  by  a  normal  and  unidiomatic  combina- 
tion of  words  Thus  in  English,  /  must  be  ojf  now  can  be 
expressed  just  as  well  by  J  must  be  going  now  or  I  must  go  now, 
which,  though  less  forcible,  is  less  familiar,  and  therefore  safer 


TEXTS;   THE   READING-BOOK  175 

for  a  foreigner  to  use.  So  also  it  caught  my  eye  may  be  para- 
phrased into  /  happened  to  see  it  without  becoming  un-English. 
Such  idioms  should  not  be  allowed  to  stand  in  the  way  of 
really  indispensable  idioms  which  cannot  be  paraphrased. 

There  are,  of  course,  gradations  in  the  indispensability  of 
idioms.  For  conversational  purposes  questions  are  at  first 
more  necessary  than  answers  :  the  idioms  used  in  questions 
must  be  mastered  perfectly,  while  those  used  in  answers  require 
only  to  be  understood.  But  many  questions  are  not  so  indis- 
pensable as  they  might  at  first  sight  appear.  One  of  the  first 
idioms  we  learn  in  beginning  to  speak  a  foreign  language  is 
what  o'clock  is  it?  But  as  every  foreigner  who  is  educated 
enough  to  be  able  to  use  a  phrase-book  is  sure  to  bring  a 
watch  with  him,  he  simply  sets  his  watch  by  the  station  clock 
when  he  arrives  in  the  foreign  country.  The  only  case  in 
which  he  is  likely  to  ask  the  time  is  that  of  his  watch  stopping 
unexpectedly,  and  then  he  would  prefer  to  put  his  question  in 
a  less  abrupt  f:>rm,  such  as  can  you  tell  me  what  the  right  titne  is  ? 
which  is  hardly  an  idiom,  but  an  ordinary  normal  sentence, 
what  is  the  time  ?  being  on  a  level  with  what  is  the  hour?  which 
is  the  way  ? 

Familiarity  of  Subject 

The  subject  of  the  texts  ought  to  be  in  harmony  with  the 
language  they  are  intended  to  teach,  both  as  regards  place  and 
time :  an  English  reading-book  for  French  learners  ought  to 
deal  with  scenes  of  modern  English  life  rather  than  with 
Lacedemonians.  Nor  would  the  English  learner  of  French 
care  to  have  French  adaptations  of  insipid  and  antiquated 
English  children's  stories  put  before  him. 

But  when  the  learner  has  got  a  firm  hold  of  the  foreign 
language,  it  is  instructive  for  him  to  read  descriptions  of  his 
own  country  written  in  the  foreign  language,  for  although  such 
descriptions  are  not  a  preparation  for  either  a  stay  in  the 
foreign  country  or  a  study  of  its  literature,  they  have  the 
advantage  of  dealing  with  objects  and  ideas  with  which  he  is 
familiar,  so  that  the  resulting  associations,  though  less  directly 
useful,  are  more  definite  and  distinct.  Descriptions  and  defini- 
tions of  familiar  objects  and  ideas  are  peculiarly  instructive. 

In  dealing  with  languages  embodied  in  old-established 
literatures  such  as   English  and  French,  and  still  more  with 


176    THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

dead  languages  such  as  Latin,  there  is  often  a  great  difficulty 
in  rinding  texts  which  are  at  once  genuinely  national  in 
character  and  at  the  same  time  simple  in  matter  and  style. 

The  difficulty  is  that  highly  developed  literatures  are  apt  to 
be  too  rhetorical  or  too  ornate,  too  epigrammatic  or  too 
cynical,  and,  generally  speaking,  wanting  in  naivety.  Hence 
the  foreigner  in  search  of  simple  texts  is  apt  unconsciously  to 
select  old-fashioned  pieces,  which,  while  fulfilling  the  require- 
ments of  simplicity  of  language  and  familiarity  of  subject,  do 
not  fulfil  them  with  reference  to  the  present  day,  the  life  and 
language  being  those  of  past  generations.  Such  a  book  as 
Vietor  and  Dorr's  Englisches  Lescbuch  is  pleasant  reading  to  an 
English  adult,  precisely  because  it  brings  back  half-faded 
associations  of  childhood  and  traditions  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  but  for  that  very  reason  is  in  many  respects  a  mislead- 
ing guide  for  Germans  who  wish  to  learn  to  understand  English 
life  and  language  as  they  now  are.  There  is  no  fault  to  be 
found  with  such  texts  as  '  London  (in  1880),'  but  it  is  difficult  to 
see  how  the  choice  of  such  a  nonsense  rhyme  as 

'  A  diller,  a  dollar,  a  ten  o'clock  scholar, 
What  makes  you  come  so  soon  ? 
You  used  to  come  at  ten  o'clock, 
But  now  you  come  at  noon,' 

can  be  justified,  for  a  dollar  is  not  an  English  coin,  and  the 
word  dollar  in  the  above  rhyme  is  not  connected  with  the 
context,  and  when  the  learner  looks  up  diller  in  the  glossary, 
he  gets  full  information  about  its  pronunciation,  but  is  dis- 
gusted to  find  that  he  has  taken  all  this  trouble  about  a  word 
which  is  only  a  '  scherzwort.' 

Even  when  perfectly  suitable  modern  texts  exist,  the  diffi- 
culties of  copyright  come  in.  Hence  in  my  Elementarbuch,  being 
in  want  of  a  short  story,  I  took  The  Gypsy  Party  by  Thomas 
Hood  (in  his  Hood's  Own),  and  modernized  the  language  and, 
to  some  extent,  the  incidents,  changing  the  title  to  The  Picnic, 
the  original  title  being  quite  an  antiquated  expression,  which 
many  English  people  would  not  understand.  In  this  way  I 
have  combined  the  advantages  of  good  matter  and  modern 
language.  The  story  of  The  Old  Chapel  in  my  Primer  of 
Spoken  English  was  obtained  in  the  same  way.  Although  the 
language  of  both  these  pieces  as  given  by  me  is  purely  modern, 
the  spirit  of  them  is  not  so.     But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  every 


TEXTS;   THE   READING-BOOK  177 

reading-book  had  to  be  perfectly  up  to  date,  we  should  have  to 
write  new  ones  every  five  years  or  so,  and  they  would  then 
embody  many  very  transitory  elements,  confined  perhaps  to  a 
limited  sphere.  But,  fortunately,  there  is  a  certain  foundation 
of  English  style  and  phraseology  which  is  even  older  than  the 
nineteenth  century ;  there  are  whole  pages  even  of  such  writers 
as  Swift  and  Arbuthnot  which,  with  a  very  little  alteration,  are 
good  colloquial  English  of  the  present  day — in  fact,  it  is  only 
by  its  being  so  good  that  we  know  that  it  is  not  Present 
English. 

Simplicity  of  Language 

Simplicity  of  language  demands,  in  the  first  place,  that  the 
texts  should  be  colloquial  rather  than  literary :  that  they 
should  be  written  in  short  sentences,  not  in  long  and  com- 
plicated periods,  that  they  should  be  as  free  as  possible 
from  metaphors  and  other  figures  of  speech.  But  colloquial 
tendencies  must  not  be  pushed  to  an  extreme.  It  must  be 
remembered  that  in  the  beginning  we  do  not  advocate  col- 
loquialism so  much  for  its  own  sake  as  because,  as  a  general 
rule,  a  colloquial  style  fulfils  certain  requirements  better  than  a 
literary  one.  But  when  colloquialism  developes  into  abrupt, 
elliptical,  disconnected  dialogues  full  of  unnecessary  idioms 
and  slang,  it  becomes  almost  as  unsuited  for  elementary 
practical  purposes  as  the  opposite  extreme.  Again,  many 
considerations  point  to  descriptions  of  nature  as  the  best  texts 
to  begin  with;  but  such  descriptions  cannot  be  colloquial  in 
the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  for  continuous  descriptions  con- 
stitute not  a  dialogue  but  a  monologue,  which  would  be  hardly 
possible  in  real  life.  Such  texts  are,  in  fact,  almost  as  much 
literary  as  colloquial,  but  they  give  the  literary  style  simplified 
to  the  utmost  degree  in  the  direction  of  the  spoken  language. 

Hence,  too,  as  already  observed,  there  is  no  harm  in  giving 
at  an  early  period  pieces  of  simple  poetry.  For  there  are 
many  poems  whose  language  is  so  simple  and  free  from 
archaisms  that  it  diverges  but  slightly  from  colloquial  speech 
as  regards  vocabulary  and  grammatical  structure,  while  the 
marked  character  given  by  the  metre  and  diction  serve  to 
diminish  the  danger  of  cross-associations  with  the  colloquial 
language.  The  little  poem,  Past  and  Present,  given  at  the 
end  of  my  Elementarbuch,  is  an  example  of  this.     In  its  thirty- 

N 


178     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

two  lines  the  only  uncolloquial  features  I  notice  are  morn  for 
morning,  bear  away  for  carry  away,  'tis  for  it's,  he  instead  of  it 
(said  of  the  sun),  and  the  compound  lily-cup,  together  with 
some  trifling  divergences  in  word-order.  Note,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  pure  colloquialism,  I'm  for  /  am.  We  might  also 
substitute  ifs  for  'tis  without  injury  to  the  metre. 

Variety 

The  great  advantage  of  natural,  idiomatic  texts  over  artificial 
'  methods  '  or  '  series  '  is  that  they  do  justice  to  every  feature 
of  the  language,  if  only  representative  pieces  of  the  three  great 
classes  of  texts  are  chosen.  The  artificial  systems,  on  the  other 
hand,  tend  to  cause  incessant  repetition  of  certain  grammatical 
constructions,  certain  elements  of  the  vocabulary,  certain  com- 
binations of  words  to  the  almost  total  exclusion  of  others  which 
are  equally,  or  perhaps  even  more,  essential.  Thus  the  Ollen- 
dorff and  Ahn  methods  result  in  the  total  exclusion  of  idioms, 
even  the  most  necessary ;  and  Gouin's  '  series '  deal  only  with 
concrete  and  objective  words,  and  almost  entirely  exclude  the 
abstract  and  subjective  elements  of  the  language,  so  that  he  is 
obliged  to  supplement  his  objective  series  with  a  subjective 
course — or,  rather,  to  promise  such  a  supplement,  for,  as  might 
be  imagined,  he  soon  found  the  task  far  beyond  his  strength. 
In  its  present  form  the  Gouin  method  is  incapable  of  teaching 
the  pupil  to  say,  '  I  think  so,'  or  '  I  would  rather  not  do  it,'  or, 
indeed,  to  express  anything  that  falls  under  the  categories  of 
emotion  or  intellect.  As  Brekke  remarks  (Brekke,  Gouin,  44), 
the  series  method  results  in  the  most  astounding  grammatical 
limitations  :  only  principal  sentences,  verb  only  in  the  first  or 
third  person,  only  assertive  sentences  (no  interrogative  or 
negative  sentences),  everything  in  the  present  tense,  and 
so  on. 

Gradation  of  Difficulties 

After  what  has  been  said,  there  can  be  little  doubt  as  to  the 
true  principles  of  the  gradation  of  texts.  The  simplest  in 
grammatical  structure  are  descriptive  pieces,  in  which  the  verb 
can  be  restricted  to  the  present  tense  and  the  third  person. 
The  practical  value  of  this  restriction  will,  of  course,  depend 
on  whether  the  language  is  highly  inflected  or  not.     Even  in 


TEXTS;  THE  READING-BOOK  179 

English  it  would  save  the  learner  some  difficulties,  such  as 
those  of  the  preterites  of  strong  verbs.  With  such  a  language 
as  Chinese  it  would  have  no  grammatical  meaning  at  all.  But 
descriptive  texts  have  the  further  advantage  of  affording  the 
clearest,  most  definite,  and  most  connected  and  continuous 
context.  With  these,  therefore,  the  beginning  should  be  made. 
They  agree  with  Gouin's  series  in  giving  mainly  the  concrete 
and  objective  elements  of  the  vocabulary.  Our  texts  would 
differ,  however,  materially  from  them  in  giving  only  the  really 
useful  combinations. 

The  grammatical  forms  which  are  wanting  in  the  descriptive 
texts  are  supplied  by  colloquial  dialogues,  which,  in  their 
highest  and  freest  development,  are  the  most  difficult  of  all. 

The  maximum  of  variety  is  attained  by  that  mixture  of 
description,  narrative  and  dialogue,  which  is  exemplified  in  a 
novel  or  short  story.  This  kind  of  text  has  the  advantage  of 
being  infinitely  elastic,  so  that  it  admits  of  almost  as  great 
simplification  as  a  purely  descriptive  text,  from  which  it  then 
differs  only  in  giving  greater  variety  of  grammatical  con- 
struction, vocabulary,  and  idioms.  This,  then,  should  be  the 
central  type  of  text :  it  is  at  the  same  time  a  preparation  both 
for  reading  and  speaking  the  language. 

Interest 

The  remarks  already  made  on  the  question  of  interest  (p.  112) 
will,  I  think,  be  confirmed  by  a  consideration  of  the  different 
ways  of  studying  texts.  To  be  interested  in  a  thing,  we  must 
be  in  the  mood  for  it,  and  the  thing  itself  must  be  a  novelty. 
The  learner  who  is  struggling  with  the  combined  difficulties  of 
pronunciation  and  grammatical  analysis,  together  with  all  the 
difficulties  caused  by  an  unfamiliar  vocabulary,  is  not  in  the 
mood  to  appreciate  jokes  or  national  humour,  which,  even  if 
not  already  stale  to  him,  or  uncongenial  through  national  pre- 
judices of  his  own,  will  certainly  lose  their  novelty  by  the  time 
he  has  learnt  to  pronounce  them  and  to  parse  their  linguistic 
embodiment.  There  are  many  passages  in  my  Elcmentai-biich 
and  Primer  of  Spoken  English  which  hardly  ever  fail  to  elicit 
signs  of  amusement  from  English  readers,  but  I  have  seldom 
known  any  of  my  foreign  pupils  show  the  slightest  signs  of 
appreciation  of  them  from  this  point  of  view. 

And  even  if  it  were  advisable  to  make  use  of  sensational 


180    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

narratives  of  shipwreck,  piracy,  murders,  and  apparitions,  our 
fundamental  principles  of  slow  reading  and  incessant  repetition 
would  soon  take  the  interest  out  of  them.  The  teacher  would 
not  fail  to  hear  the  remark  frequently  made  by  those  who 
begin  the  study  of  a  foreign  language  with  this  kind  of  litera- 
ture, '  I  should  like  to  read  this  book  in  a  translation — I  cannot 
remember  the  plot  of  the  story  when  I  only  read  twenty  lines 
a  day.' 

But  if  learners  are  often  callous  to  the  literary  or  humorous 
merits  of  their  texts,  they  are,  on  the  other  hand,  very  ready  to 
criticize  their  defects.  Young  children,  in  particular,  have  a 
great  dislike  to  being  condescended  to,  and  being  offered  what 
is  aggressively  babyish,  or  too  obviously  intended  to  serve 
moral  and  pedagogic  interests.  Often,  indeed,  they  prefer  the 
other  extreme  :  they  like  to  have  glimpses  of  something  just  a 
little  beyond  them.     We  all  dislike  unnecessary  triviality. 

This  is  why  I  based  my  descriptions  in  the  Ekmentarbuch 
mainly  on  popular  scientific  and  sociological  works  (p.  166), 
although  this  involves  some  slight  deviations  from  the  principle 
of  familiarity.  But  even  when  I  introduce  details  out  of  the 
life  of  the  Middle  Ages  or  any  other  unfamiliar  scene,  I  take 
care  to  describe  them  in  language  which  recalls  ideas  familiar 
to  the  modern  reader. 

Another  insuperable  obstacle  to  making  texts  positively 
interesting  and  not  merely  non- trivial  or  non-objectionable,  is 
the  variety  of  tastes.  Descriptions  of  nature  are  soothing  and 
pleasing  to  some  minds  even  if  a  little  commonplace.  To 
others  even  the  most  eloquent  and  imaginative  descriptions  of 
nature  are  as  tedious  and  depressing  as  nature  itself  is  to  them  : 
those  who  do  not  care  to  hear  about 

'  The  new  soft -fallen  mask 
Of  snow  upon  the  mountains  and  the  moors  ' 

cannot  be  expected  to  be  interested  in  a  matter-of-fact  descrip- 
tion of  atmospheric  or  marine  phenomena.  Storm  objects  to 
my  descriptions  of  nature  that  '  the  children  have  enough  of 
them  at  school,'  and  Passy  says  that  '  no  French  boys  would 
have  the  patience  to  go  through  them.' 

These  divergences  of  taste  depend  partly  on  nationality  and 
changes  in  public  taste.  A  certain  style  of  literature  goes  out 
of  fashion  in  one  country,  and  is  then  introduced  into  another, 


TEXTS;   THE   READING-BOOK  181 

where  it  is  welcomed  as  a  novelty,  just  as  extinct  German 
philosophies  find  a  sleepy  home  elsewhere.  Hence  it  is  pos- 
sible that  the  '  goody '  stories  in  Passy's  Elementarbuch  may  be 
acceptable  to  German  children,  although  they  certainly  were 
not  so  to  English  children  even  thirty  years  ago,  at  which 
period  they  had  already  become  old-fashioned  in  this  country. 
I  am  certain  that  such  a  piece  as  (1  ekol  bqisonjftr)  in  Passy's 
book  (nr.  42)  would  provoke  lively  antagonism  in  most  English 
readers,  not  on  account  of  the  sentiments  conveyed  in  it,  but 
of  the  manner  in  which  the  moral  lesson  is  put  forward.  Nor 
can  I  believe  that  school-children  care  to  read  descriptions  of 
schoolrooms  and  of  pedagogues  swaggering  before  a  big  black 
board  chalk  and  duster  in  hand,  such  as  Passy  gives  in  his  first 
piece  (la  klaas).  I  do  not  make  these  remarks  with  any  inten- 
tion of  depreciating  this  valuable  book,  but  simply  as  an  illus- 
tration of  the  impossibility  of  making  linguistic  texts  permanently 
interesting  to  the  majority  of  learners.  It  is  with  texts  and 
selections  as  with  pronunciation  :  every  one  likes  his  own  best. 
I  find,  too,  as  regards  my  own  books,  the  Elementarbuch  and  the 
Primer  of  Spoken  English,  that  every  reader  has  different  tastes. 

Besides  avoiding  triviality  and  over-childishness  and  naivety, 
it  is  evident  that  the  texts  should  be  of  moderate  medium 
length — neither  as  long  as  three-volume  novels  on  the  one 
hand,  nor  as  short  as  proverbs  on  the  other  (p.  172). 

As  to  monotony,  the  principles  of  variety  and  gradation 
already  discussed  will  fully  obviate  that. 

Literary  Texts 

The  language  of  purely  literary  texts  is  generally  inconsistent 
with  our  principles  of  selection.  It  is  tolerably  sure  to  be 
more  or  less  archaic  from  a  strictly  colloquial  point  of  view,  or 
to  contain  unnecessary  words  and  phrases,  or  to  be  accompanied 
by  complications  of  grammatical  structure,  or  vagueness  of 
context.  But  if  a  literary  piece  is  exceptionally  suitable  for 
any  linguistic  purpose,  or  seems  to  fit  in  well  with  the  context, 
or  to  illustrate  it  and  make  things  clearer,  there  can  be  no  very 
strong  objection  to  admitting  it,  if  the  divergences  from  the 
colloquial  standard  are  not  too  marked  or  such  as  to  cause 
linguistic  confusion. 

Many  of  these  divergences  can,  indeed,  often  be  removed 


1 82     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

without  injury  to  the  general  character  of  the  piece,  and  this 
should  always  be  done  when  practicable. 

Useful  texts  may  be  constructed  by  retelling  the  story  of 
some  literary  composition  in  simple  language.  Epic  and  narra- 
tive poems  may  be  dealt  with  in  this  way  in  languages  other- 
wise wanting  in  prose  texts,  such  as  many  dead  languages. 
Thus  one  of  the  texts  in  my  First  Steps  is  a  simple  prose  para- 
phrase of  the  epic  poem  of  Beowulf,  which  in  its  metrical  form 
bristles  with  obscurities  and  difficulties.  I  here  give  a  specimen, 
first  of  the  poem  itself,  and  then  of  the  corresponding  portion 
of  my  own  paraphrase  into  simple  Old  English  prose : — 

'  Sbwa  a  dryhtguman         dreamum  lifdon 
eadigllce,         obbast  an  ongann 
firene  fremman,         feond  on  helle. 
Wses  se  grimma.  giest         Grendel  haten, 
masre  mearcstapa,         se  be  moras  heold, 
fenn  and  fasten.         Fifelcynnes  eard 
wansselig  wer         weardode  hwlle, 
sibban  him  Scieppend         forscrifen  hasfde 
in  Caines  cynne,         bone  cwealm  gewrasc 
ece  Dryhten,         bass  be  he  Abel  slog. 
Ne  gefeah  he  basre  fashbe,         ac  he  hine  feorr  forwrsec 
metod  for  by  mane         manncynne  fram ; 
banon  untydras        ealle  onwocon  : 
eotenas  and  ielfe         and  orcneas, 
swelce  gigantas         ba  wib  Gode  wunnon 
lange  brage ;         he  him  }>ass  lean  forgeald ! 
Gewat  ba  neosian,  sij>ban  niht  becom, 

hean  huses,         hu  hit  Hringdene 
sefter  beorbege         gebun  hsefdon. 
Fand  ba  bairinne         sebelinga  gedryht 
swefan  sefter  symble  ;         sorge  ne  cubon 
wansceaft  wera.     Wiht  unfaslo 
grimm  and  graadig         gearo  sona  wass, 
reoc  and  re^e,         and  on  reste  genam 
britig  begna ;         banon  eft  gewat 
hube  hremig         to  ham  faran, 
mid  bsere  waelfylle         wica  neosan.' 

'  On  bisse  blisse  burhwunode  HrSbgar  cyning  and  his  menn 
lange  tid,  obbaet  him  feond  onseege^  wearb.  Past  wass  unfselu 
wiht,  Grendel  hatte.     Se  bade  on  \ asm  mearclande,  and  haefde 


TEXTS;  THE   READING-BOOK  183 

him  faesten  geworht  on  fennum,  onmiddan  ]>£em  sweartum 
mdrum. 

Sume  menn  cwsedon  bast  Grende  waere  of  Calnes  cynne. 
Forbaim,  ba  Cain  ofslog  Abel  his  brobor,  ba  wear  b  him  se 
aelmihtiga  gram,  and  nine  on  wraecsib  asende,  and  het  hine  on 
westenne  wunian,  feorr  mancynne.  Panon  onwocon  ealle 
unfaele  wihta,  dweorgas,  and  ielfe,  and  eotenas,  be  wib  God 
wunnon. 

Pa  ne  mihte  Grendel  bolian  bast  he  ielce  daege  blisse  gehierde 
on  Heorote,  and  he  self  ute  wunode  on  piestrum. 

fa  on  niht  aefter  ))im  gebeorscipe,  ba  ba  menn  slepon  on 
jJaare  healle,  ba  wearf>  se  reba  Grendel  sona  gearo  :  he  him  on 
ungearwe  on  bestael,  ba  hie  him  nanes  yfeles  ne  wendon,  and 
hira  britig  genam,  and  mid  him  ferede  ham  td  his  faestenne, 
baere  herehyj^e  fasgniende  ;  forbaam  hit  waes  his  beaw  baet  he 
hlaf  ne  ast,  ne  waster  ne  dranc,  ac  aet  manna  lichaman  and  hira 
blod  dranc.' 

But  such  paraphrases  must  be  into  a  simple,  colloquial  style 
of  language,  as  far  as  possible.  Such  books  as  Lamb's  Tales 
from  Shakespeare  are  useless  for  our  purposes  because  written 
in  an  artificial  archaic  style. 

In  dealing  with  dead  languages  we  cannot  be  so  fastidious, 
especially  with  one  that  has  only  a  limited  prose  literature, 
such  as  Old  English.  Thus  in  the  above  paraphrase  of  Beo- 
wulf I  have  made  no  attempt  to  keep  to  the  language  of  one 
peirod,  but  wherever  I  have  found  a  suitable  model  or  pattern 
for  any  portion  of  it,  I  have  followed  it,  whether  it  comes 
from  Alfred  or  ^Elfric,  or  from  the  early  or  later  parts  of  the 
Chronicle. 

Condensed  Treatises 

Advanced  students  of  a  language  often  feel  the  want  of  a 
knowledge  of  the  vocabulary  of  some  special  technical  or  scien- 
tific subject  which  they  cannot  expect  to  pick  up  by  ordinary 
general  reading  —  such  subjects  as  commerce,  gardening, 
management  of  a  sailing-boat,  cycling,  trigonometry,  chemistry, 
electricity. 

A  full  logical  dictionary  would,  of  course,  give  some  informa- 
tion as  to  the  vocabulary  of  such  subjects,  but  necessarily  in  a 
very  concise  form,  especially  in  the  wider  branches  of  know- 
ledge.    For  mastering  the  vocabulary  of  these,  it  would  be 


1 84    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

desirable  to  have  condensed  special  treatises  resembling  the 
science  primers  and  practical  guides  with  which  we  are  familiar, 
but  differing  essentially  from  them  in  strictly  subordinating 
actual  information  to  explanation  and  illustration  of  the  special 
vocabulary  and  terminology  of  the  subject  in  question. 

This  might  be  extended  to  more  general  subjects.  Thus  we 
might  have  a  series  of  ideal  condensed  histories  of  different 
periods  with  typical  battles,  sieges,  sea-fights,  insurrections, 
trials  for  treason,  embassies  and  so  on,  the  information — which 
may  be  imaginary — being  only  just  as  much  as  will  suffice  to 
give  a  certain  number  of  examples  of  the  terminology  required. 

Subordination  to  Form  ;   Grammatical  Texts 

We  have  seen  that  the  general  character  of  a  text  determines 
to  some  extent  the  character  of  its  vocabulary  and  grammatical 
forms — that,  for  instance,  in  descriptions  and  narratives  the 
verbs  may  be  exclusively  in  the  third  person.  In  Caesar's 
Commentaries  even  the  dialogues  have  their  verbs  in  the  third 
person  through  being  put  in  indirect  narration.  If,  then,  for 
any  pedagogic  purpose  we  wanted  a  text  of  this  description, 
it  would  be  perfectly  easy  to  make  one  without  doing  any  vio- 
lence to  the  genius  of  the  language. 

It  is  a  different  matter  when  we  try  to  write  a  text  under 
formal  limitations  which  do  not  naturally  follow  from  the 
general  character  of  the  text.  Even  so  apparently  natural  and 
reasonable  a  restriction  as  using  only  the  present  tense  in 
descriptions  of  nature  might  cause  embarrassment,  although  it 
is  partially  founded  on  the  character  of  the  text.  Thus  the 
very  first  verb  in  my  descriptive  texts  in  the  Elementarbuch  is 
a  preterite  (used).  Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  even  if  all  the 
verbs  are  made  present  in  meaning,  we  cannot  avoid  the  pre- 
terite in  clauses  of  rejected  condition,  as  in  if  it  were  implying 
1  it  is  not.' 

English  has  so  many  monosyllabic  words  that  it  is  quite 
possible  to  write  long  texts  in  words  of  one  syllable  ;  and  this 
has  often  been  done  from  a  mistaken  idea  that  such  texts 
facilitate  learning  to  read.  But  when  we  consider  that  such  a 
restriction  allows  us  to  mention  only  a  single  season  of  the 
year,  only  three  out  of  the  twelve  months,  and  not  a  single  day 
of  the  week,  it  is  evident  that  such  texts  must  be  hampered  by 
many  unnatural  omissions  and  awkward  circumlocutions. 


TEXTS;   THE   READING-BOOK  185 

In  China,  whore  all  the  words  of  the  language  are  monosyl- 
labic, a  book  written  under  much  more  embarrassing  restrictions 
is  still  used  as  a  primer  for  teaching  boys  to  read  and  write. 
This  is  the  famous  Book  of  a  Thousand  Characters  (ts'icn  tsf  wen). 
The  origin  of  this  book  is  a  curious  story.  It  is  said  that  one 
of  the  emperors  summoned  the  best  scholar  of  the  time,  and 
gave  him  a  thousand  slips  of  paper,  each  with  a  different  cha- 
racter— that  is,  a  different  word — written  on  it,  and  told  him 
to  arrange  them  so  as  to  make  sense.  The  scholar  solved  the 
problem  in  a  single  night ;  but  in  the  morning  his  hair  had 
turned  white.  The  peculiar  difficulty  of  the  task  lay,  of  course, 
in  the  restriction  that  no  word  was  to  be  used  twice  over — not 
even  the  commonest  particle.  The  result  was  a  text  that  was 
never  really  intelligible  throughout,  not  even  with  the  help  of 
the  many  commentaries  that  have  been  written  on  it.  Such 
a  task  could  not  have  been  even  attempted  in  any  other 
language  but  Chinese,  which,  at  a  pinch,  can  dispense  entirely 
with  auxiliaries  or  particles  of  any  kind,  and  express  every 
grammatical  relation  by  mere  position. 

Other  Oriental  languages  can  show  long  poems  written 
entirely  to  illustrate  grammatical  and  lexical  forms.  Thus  in 
Sanskrit  there  is  an  epic  written  for  the  express  purpose  of 
giving  examples  of  verb-forms  found  in  the  grammars  but  non- 
existent in  the  literature.  The  artificiality  lies  here  not  in 
restriction,  but  simply  in  finding  a  connected  context  for  a 
certain  number  of  words.  But  comparatively  easy  as  the  task 
is,  we  cannot  believe  that  the  result  can  be  anything  but  insuf- 
ferably tedious. 

In  Europe  such  texts  are  constructed  in  a  less  ambitious 
spirit.  Our  Ahns  and  Ollendorff's  do  not  write  poems ;  they 
do  not  even  try  to  write  consecutive  prose.  Franke's  Phrases 
de  tons  les  jours  contains  excellent  materials,  but  has  the  same 
defect  of  want  of  continuity.  As  Storm  remarks  (Forbedret 
Unde?~visning,  p.  26),  '  we  have  here  a  good  selection  of  idiomatic 
material,  but  not  a  single  actual  conversation,  nor  any  arrange- 
ment according  to  the  grammar.  The  material  is  as  discon- 
nected as  in  the  ordinary  manuals.  We  meet,  for  instance, 
every  minute  pronouns  without  being  able  to  see  who  is  referred 
to,  and  questions  without  answers.  It  is  of  little  use  having 
good  material,  if  it  cannot  be  assimilated.  When  the  sense  is 
interrupted  every  moment  and  the  context  becomes  uninte1- 
ligible,  it  is  impossible  to  adapt  oneself  to  the  situation,  and 


1 86    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

feel  at  home  in  the  surroundings.'  I  may  add  that  Franke 
probably  thought  that  the  arrangement  of  his  idioms  under 
logical  categories  would  be  enough  to  associate  them  together 
in  the  learner's  mind.  But  this  seems  not  to  be  the  case ;  as 
they  stand,  Franke's  idioms  are  of  no  use  except  as  a  summary 
of  what  has  already  been  learnt  from  connected  texts.  And 
this  was  the  main  object  of  my  colloquial  sentences  in  the 
Ekmentarbuch,  although  at  the  same  time  I  was  fully  alive  to 
the  advisability  of  making  the  sentences  as  connected  as 
possible.  But  I  soon  saw  that  to  carry  this  out  fully  would 
require  much  more  space  than  I  could  afford.  In  a  full 
thesaurus  or  in  a  primer  which  dealt  only  with  the  commonest 
words  there  would,  I  think,  be  little  difficulty  in  making  the  ex- 
amples form  continuous  dialogues  or  narratives  or  descriptions 
of  some  length.  The  continuity  would,  of  course,  be  logical, 
not  formal — that  is,  not  according  to  grammatical  categories. 

Storm  himself  has,  in  his  .Dialogues  Franfais,1  attempted  to 
construct  connected  texts  for  systematic  practice  in  the  chief 
rules  of  grammar,  so  arranged  that  the  rules  are  learnt  more 
by  unconscious  imitation  than  by  deliberate  grammatical 
analysis.  The  author  has  taken  the  principle  of  beginning 
with  the  spoken  language  literally  by  giving  his  texts  in  the 
form  of  dialogues.  But  it  must  be  remarked  that  the  book  is 
not  intended  for  beginners,  but  for  grown-up  students  who  have 
already  worked  at  French  for  two  or  three  years.  From  this 
point  of  view  the  choice  of  dialogues  instead  of  more  e  ementary 
forms  of  texts  is  fully  justified,  and,  perhaps,  to  some  extent, 
the  complete  absence  of  any  phonetic  transcription. 

Considered  from  the  purely  grammatical  point  of  view,  it 
must  be  admitted  that  these  dialogues  have  been  adapted  to 
their  purpose  with  great  skill.  But  it  must  also  be  admitted 
that  this  subordination  of  matter  to  form  has  made  many 
of  them  Irather  trivial  and  uninteresting  in  themselves.  But 
the  dialogues  are  frequently  interspersed  with  little  anecdotes 
and  occasional  literary  pieces  (cf.  p.  181),  among  which  we 
find  the  well-known  passage  from  Moliere  about  M.  Jourdain 
speaking  prose  without  knowing  it. 

One  danger  of  |\vriting  texts  for  a  certain  purpose  is  the 
tendency  to  spin  them  out  indefinitely  by  heaping  up  illustra- 
tions and  dwelling  too  long  on  one  rule.     Even  with  the  most 

1  There  is  an  authorized  English  edition  by  G.  Macdonald  under  the  title 
of  French  Dialogues  by  Joh.  Storm. 


TEXTS;    THE    READING-BOOK  187 

rigid  limitations  the  attempt  adequately  to  embody  all  the 
rules  of  grammar  in  such  texts  would  probably  result  in  a  book 
of  impracticable  length.  Storm  himself  seems  to  feel  this 
difficulty,  for  he  often  interrupts  his  dialogues  to  give  groups  of 
detached  proverbs,  phrases,  and  idioms,  which  have  not  even 
the  logical  connection  of  Franke's  sentences,  being  associated 
solely  by  grammatical  considerations. 

I  will  now  give  a  few  examples  of  Storm's  texts  : — 

'  II.  L'article  partitif. 
Avez-vous  du  vin  ?  * 

Je  n'ai  pas  de  vin,  mais  le  marchand  de  vin  en  a.2 
A-t-il  du  vin  rouge,  du  vin  blanc,  de  bon  vin,3  de  mauvais 
vin? 

II  n'a  pas  de  mauvais  vin,  il  n'en  a  que  de  bon. 
Quel  vin  desirez-vous,  du  rouge  ou  du  blanc  ? 
Donnez-moi  du  rouge.     Ce  n'est  pas  du  vin,  c'est  du  vinaigre. 
J'en  ai  d'autre  ;  j'en  ai  de  meilleur  ;  en  voici. 

Voila.  du  vrais  bordeaux,  et  du  meilleur.  Vous  avez  de  si 
bon  vin,  que  je  vous  en  demanderai  encore.     Cela  fait  du  bien. 

Un  peu  plus  de  vin  ne  vous  fera  pas  de  mal. 

II  me  faut  peu  de  vin  et  beaucoup  d'eau. 

Vous  mettez  trop  d'eau  dans  votre  vin  ;  mettez  moins  d'eau 
et  plus  de  vin. 

II  n'y  a  pas  de  vin ;  moi  du  moins  je  n'en  ai  pas.  II  n'y  a 
plus  de  vin.     Je  n'ai  plus  de  vin. 

II  n'y  en  a  plus  ? 

II  n'en  reste  plus. 

Si,  il  en  reste  encore. 

En  avez-vous  ? 

Oui,  j'en  ai.  En  voulez-vous  ?  Ddsirez-vous  encore  du  vin  ? 
En  voulez-vous  encore  ? 

Oui,  donnez-m'en  encore  un  peu. 

Garcon,  encore  du  vin,  s'il  vous  plait. 

Encore  un  peu  de  vin,  s'il  vous  plait.  Encore  un  verre  de 
vin,  s'il  vous  plait. 

Mais  vous  avez  un  verre  de  vin  devant  vous. 

Pardon,  il  y  a  bien  un  verre  [a  vin],  mais  pas  de  vin. 

Un  peu  plus  de  vin,  monsieur  ? 

1  All  the  texts  have  translations  in  parallel  columns. 

2  This  is  Ollendorffian. 

*  In  a  note  the  author  tells  us  that  the  colloquial  form  is  du  bon  vin. 


1 88     THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

Merci.     [Je  ne  veux]  1  plus  de  vin. 
Monsieur  n'en  veut  pas  davantage  ? 
Pas  davantage,  je  vous  remercie. 
Du  vin,  mon  ami  ? 

Merci.     Pas  de  vin.     Je  ne  bois  pas  de  vin.     Je  ne  veux 
pas  de  vin.     II  y  a  un  verre  de  trop,  6tez-le. 

'  Avez-vous  du  pain  ? 

Non,  je  n'ai  pas  de  pain,  mais  le  boulanger  en  a  (il  y  en  a 
chez  le  boulanger). 


'  Allons  diner.     Garcon,  la  carte,  s'il  vous  plait. 
Quel  potage  de'sirent  ces  messieurs  ? 


I  Messieurs,  en  dinant,  je  vais  vous  raconter  une  petite 
histoire.  L' autre  jour  un  Anglais,  assis  dans  un  restaurant, 
criait  a  rue-tete,  a  plusieurs  reprises  :  "  Garcon  !  plus  de  soupe  ! 
Garcon  !  plus  de  soupe  !  Garcon  ;  n'entendez-vous  pas  ?  plus 
de  soupe  !  "  Le  garcon  repond  d'abord  :  "  Bien,  monsieur." 
A  la  fin  il  dit  :  "  Monsieur,  j'entends  tres  bien ;  vous  ne  desirez 
plus  de  soupe  ;  aussi  ne  vous  en  servirai-je  plus."  L' Anglais, 
tres-e'tonne,  s'ecrie  :  "  Mais  c'est  justement  plus  de  soupe  que 
je  veux."  "  Ah,"  dit  le  garcon,  "  c'est  different ;  alors  il  fallait 
vous  expliquer  plus  clairement.  Si  vous  m'aviez  dit  que  vous 
desiriez  encore  du  potage,  je  vous  en  aurais  servi  tout  de  suite." 
Notre  Anglais,  honteux  et  confus,  s'est  remis  h  prendre  des 
lecons  de  francais. 

'  II  n'y  a  pas  de  regie  sans  exception. 

II  n'est  point  de  roses  sans  epines. 
II  n'y  a  pas  de  fumee  sans  feu. 
Ne'cessite'  n'a  point  de  loi. 

Faire  de  ne'cessite  vertu. 

A  bon  entendeur  peu  de  paroles. 

A  sotte  question  point  de  reponse. 

Ventre  aflame"  n'a  point  d'oreilles. 

On  prend  plus  de  mouches  avec  du  miel  qu'avec  du  vinaigre. 

1  These  additions  in  [  ]  might  be  relegated  to  notes,  as  they  confuse  the 
learner,  who  ought  to  have  only  one  form  presented  to  him  at  a  time — that 
is,  in  this  case,  Merci.     Plus  de  vin. 


TEXTS;   THE  READING-BOOK  189 

II  n'a  ni  feu  ni  lieu. 

II  n'a  ni  foi  ni  loi. 

Cela  n'a  ni  rime  ni  raison.' 

The  difficulty  of  constructing  grammatical  texts  may  depend 
on  the  nature  of  the  language.  The  more  highly  inflectional 
a  language  is,  the  more  easily  it  seems  to  lend  itself  to  such 
a  priori  construction  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  complexity 
of  its  forms  is  an  additional  inducement  to  make  such  texts. 
It  will  therefore  be  worth  while  to  notice  a  Finnish  analogue 
to  Storm's  book,  intended  to  teach  Finnish  to  Swedish-speaking 
natives  of  Finland — Kallio's  Finsk  Elementarbok} 

The  plan  of  this  book  differs,  however,  widely  from  that  of 
Storm's  Dialogues.  It  is  divided  into  four  parts:  (1)  texts, 
(2)  vocabularies,  (3)  general  index  to  vocabularies  (4)  grammar. 
Each  text  has  its  own  vocabulary,  in  which  the  meanings 
of  the  words  are  explained  in  the  order  in  which  they 
occur  in  the  text.  The  index  to  these  vocabularies  is  an 
alphabetic  list  of  all  the  words  in  the  texts,  each  word  having 
a  reference  to  the  number  of  the  text  where  it  occurs  first, 
which  is,  of  course,  also  the  number  of  the  corresponding 
vocabulary,  no  further  information  being  given.  The  object 
of  this  is  to  induce  the  learner  to  master  as  thoroughly  as  he 
can  the  vocabulary  of  each  piece  before  going  on  to  the  next, 
so  as  to  save  himself  the  trouble  of  looking  up  the  word  in  the 
index  and  then  referring  to  the  vocabulary  there  indicated. 
This  is  one  of  the  weak  points  of  the  book :  the  learner  ought 
to  be  referred  not  to  a  dry  list  of  isolated  words,  but  directly  to 
the  text  itself,  so  that  he  can  take  in  the  context.  As  it  is,  if 
he  wishes  to  compare  the  context  of  the  first  appearance  of  a 
word,  he  has  to  make  three  different  references — two  to  lists  of 
words,  and  another  to  the  text  itself.  Notes  like  those  in  my 
First  Steps  in  Anglo-Saxon  are  simpler  and  more  effective  than 
these  short  glossaries,  which  neither  give  full  information  nor 
are  convenient  to  refer  to  through  not  being  alphabetic.  It 
would  really  be  simpler  to  do  away  with  the  special  vocabularies, 
and  have  an  alphabetical  glossary,  and  nothing  else.  The 
learner  cannot  be  expected  to  remember  every  word  at  once 
— least  of  all   in   a  strange   language   like    Finnish — so   that 

1  I  know  it  only  in  its  fourth  edition,  in  which  it  has  undergone  some 
modifications  by  another  hand. 


i9o     THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

practically  he  is  obliged  to  look  up  many  words  at  least  three 
times,  besides  occasional  references  to  the  grammar.  There 
is,  in  short,  too  much  to  and  fro  work — there  is  more  turning 
over  of  pages  than  with  the  ordinary  grammar  and  dictionary 
method. 

The  grammar  begins  with  two  pages  of  introduction  dealing 
with  the  phonology.  After  that  it  is  divided  into  numbered 
sections,  each  number  referring  to  that  of  the  piece  in  which 
the  grammatical  rules  given  in  that  section  are  exemplified. 
Thus  the  first  section  (p.  139)  gives  part  of  a  verb-paradigm 
with  analysis  and  rules  : — 

'  (mind)  mene-11         I  go 

(sind)  mene-t  thou  goest 

(me)  mene-mme  we  go 

(te  or  Te)  mene-tte     ye  go  or  you  go 

Stem  :  mene.     Personal  endings  :  -;/,  -/,  -mme,  -tie. 

Rule  1.  In  an  inflected  Finnish  word  we  distinguish  stem 
and  ending. 

Rule  2.  By  adding  different  endings  to  the  stem  we  get 
different  inflections  of  the  word. 

Rule  3.  The  subjects  mind,  sind,  me,  te  (or  Te)  can  be  omitted 
if  there  is  no  emphasis  on  them.' 

All  this  seems  rather  dry  and  unnecessarily  pedantic ;  but  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  book  is  intended  for  teaching 
children  in  classes,  not  for  self-instruction. 

The  corresponding  text  (p.  1)  and  its  glossary  (p.  73)  are  as 
follows : — 

1.  Puheharj otitis. 

1  Hyvaa  paivaa  !  Kuinka  te  voitte  ? — Kylla  me  hyvin  voimme. 
Kuinka  sinavoit? — Kiitoksia,  hyvin  mina  voin. — Mihin  menet? 
— Mina  tulen  teille  ja  toivon,  etta  te  huomenna  1  tulette  meille. — 
Kiitoksia !  Kylla  me  tulemme,  jos  mina  voin  hyvin  huo- 
menna.— Toivon,  etta  Te  voitte  hyvin. 

Hy vasti  nyt !  Hy  vasti,  hyvasti  ! — Siis  tulette  huomenna  ? — 
Kylla  me  tulemme. 

1. 

puheharj otitis,  speaking-practice,     kuinka,  how  ? 

hyvdd  pdivdd,  good  day  !  te,  Te,  ye,  you;  teille,  to  you. 

1  Pronounced  huomena. 


TEXTS;   THE   READING-BOOK  191 

vein,  be  (ill  or  well).  tukn,  come. 

kyllii,  certainly.  ja,  and. 

me,  we  ;  meille,  to  us.  toivon,  hope. 

hyvin,  well.  ettti,  that. 

si/; if,  thou.  huomenna,  to-morrow. 

kiitoksia,  thanks.  Jois,  if. 

mind,  I.  hyvasti,  good-bye ! 

mi  kin,  whither  ?  Tytf,  now, 

menen,  go  «'«,  so,  therefore.' 

We  cannot  expect  much  of  a  text  produced  under  such 
conditions,  but  it  is  certainly  a  great  advance  on  Ahn  and  the 
rest  of  them.  At  any  rate,  it  is  connected.  The  average 
length  of  the  later  pieces  is  about  a  page.  The  following  are 
translations  of  some  of  the  headings,  to  which  I  have  occasion- 
ally added  the  first  sentence  or  two  of  the  piece:  Father 
(Father  often  goes  away  early  in  the  morning.  Sometimes  he 
comes  home  late  in  the  evening  .  .  .) ;  the  Neighbours ;  the 
Poor  Woman  (Yonder  is  a  cottage.  The  cottage  is  old  and 
bad.  There  dwells  a  poor  woman  .  .  .) ;  the  Gardiner ;  What 
do  we  buy  and  sell  ? ;  Journey  abroad ;  On  the  Ice  (Near  us 
there  is  a  skating-rink) ;  the  Eagle's  Nest ;  the  Months  ;  the 
Lighthouse ;  Norway  ;  Wolves ;  a  Fairy-story  ;  Kalevala  (the 
Kalevala  tells  of  the  life  of  our  ancestors.  There  are  fifty 
cantos  in  it.  The  chief  personages  are  .  .  .  ).  It  will  be  seen 
that  the  texts  are  of  a  very  varied  character,  only  a  few  of 
them  being  in  the  dialogue  form.  Some  of  them  are  necessarily 
rather  trivial,  especially  the  earlier  ones,  and  sometimes  the 
constructions  are  a  little  unnatural,  through  the  necessity  of 
avoiding  certain  difficult  forms,  such  as  most  of  the  infinitive 
and  participle  constructions,  which  are  the  great  difficulty  of 
the  language.  There  is  a  second  part,  on  the  same  plan  as  the 
first,  in  which  the  rest  of  the  grammar  is  worked  out  in  the 
same  way,  accidence  and  syntax  being  kept  abreast  throughout. 

On  the  whole  Kallio's  Finsk  Elementarbok  gives  as  good  a 
compromise  between  free  texts  and  grammatical  texts  as  could 
reasonably  be  expected.  But  the  general  question  still  remains, 
Which  method  will  yield  best  results  within  a  given  time — that 
of  progressive  grammatical  texts,  or  of  free  texts  accompanied 
by  a  complete  grammar  founded  on  the  texts  ? 

These  considerations  bring  us  face  to  face  with  the  problem, 
How  are  we  to  bridge  over  the  gulf  between  grammar  and 


192    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

reader  ?  The  dilemma  is  this :  If  the  texts  are  perfectly  free 
and  natural,  they  cannot  be  brought  into  any  definite  relation 
to  the  grammar.  If  the  learner  reads  a  sufficient  number  of 
systematically  varied  texts,  he  may  depend  on  finding  examples 
of  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  rules  of  grammar ;  but  the  examples 
will  occur  practically  at  haphazard  without  any  natural  grouping 
and  without  any  regularity  of  reoccurrence.  Thus  in  a  descrip- 
tive text  all  that  we  can  promise  a  priori,  from  a  grammatical 
point  of  view,  is  that  the  verbs  shall  be  in  the  third  person 
present,  while  from  a  logical  point  of  view  we  can  determine 
with  definiteness  and  certainty  what  concrete  or  other  categories 
shall  be  represented. 

The  other  horn  of  the  dilemma  is  that  if  we  try  to  make  our 
texts  embody  certain  definite  grammatical  categories,  the  texts 
cease  to  be  natural :  they  become  either  trivial,  tedious,  and 
long-winded,  or  else  they  become  more  or  less  monstrosities, 
or,  finally,  they  are  broken  up  into  detached  sentences.  Storm, 
as  we  see,  openly  adopts  the  detached  sentence  method ;  and 
this  is  better  than  giving  texts  which  are  outwardly  connected, 
while  in  reality  their  sentences  are  detached. 

We  may,  then,  repeat  our  question  in  a  different  form : 
Is  it  really  worth  while  trying  to  construct  grammatical  texts  ? 
Is  it  not  simpler  to  rely  on  natural  texts  on  the  one  hand,  and 
detached  sentences  on  the  other  ? 

If  we  resign  ourselves  to  this  compromise,  we  shall  find  that 
detached  sentences  are  the  real  bridge  across  the  gulf  between 
texts  and  grammar.  The  bridge  is  constructed  by  taking  the 
detached  sentences  used  as  examples  in  the  grammar  from  the 
texts  the  learner  is  either  reading  at  the  moment  or  is  about  to 
read.  This  is  the  method  I  adopt  in  my  A?iglo-Saxon  Primer  : 
all  the  examples  in  the  syntax  are  taken  from  the  texts  which 
follow.  In  this  book  I  have,  like  Storm,  supplemented  the 
texts  and  the  grammar  by  adding  a  selection  of  detached  sen- 
tences, arranged  so  as  to  illustrate  the  different  grammatical 
categories.  In  First  Steps  in  Anglo-Saxon  I  generally  follow 
the  same  principle,  though  here,  not  being  bound  to  adhere 
strictly  to  the  texts,  I  frequently  modify  the  sentences  in  the 
grammar  which  are  taken  from  the  texts,  so  as  to  make  them 
more  instructive  for  the  immediate  purpose  I  have  in  view. 

This  method  acts  well  either  way,  whether  the  learner  begins 
with  the  texts  or  with  the  grammar.  In  the  first  case,  he 
remembers  the  context  of  his  sentence  when  he  meets  it  in  the 


TEXTS;  THE   READING-BOOK  193 

grammar,  so  that  it  is  no  longer  isolated  to  him.  In  the  second 
case,  when  he  meets  his  sentence  in  the  texts,  he  sees  more 
easily  what  grammatical  rule  it  illustrates.  By  going  through 
grammar  and  text  alternately  several  times,  both  these  advan- 
tages may  be  secured. 

It  is  evident  that  the  question  of  the  relation  between  texts 
and  grammar  cannot  arise  till  the  systematic  study  of  grammar 
has  been  begun.  Kallio's  book  introduces  grammatical  analysis, 
with  its  stems  and  cases,  at  the  very  beginning.  In  my  First 
Steps  in  Ajiglo-Saxon  I  utilize  the  section  on  pronunciation 
as  a  preparation  for  the  grammar,  but,  as  Old  English  in  the 
nature  of  things  is  not  learnt  by  very  young  or  linguistically 
untrained  beginners,  it  was  not  worth  while  giving  much  space 
to  lengthening  and  systematically  developing  the  pre-gram- 
matical  stage.  If  this  were  done,  the  gulf  between  texts  and 
grammar  would  be  partially  bridged  over  beforehand  :  when 
the  learner  came  to  the  grammatical  stage,  he  would  not  only 
be  better  able  to  understand  the  detached  sentences  in  his 
grammar,  but  would  also  be  familiar  with  many  of  them  indi- 
vidually. 

Another  important  result  of  the  development  of  the  pre- 
grammatical  stage  would  be  that  very  elementary  and  conse- 
quently trivial  and  unnatural  grammatical  texts  would  no  longer 
be  needed  at  all,  and  grammatical  texts  generally  would 
perhaps  become  superfluous. 


CHAPTER    XIV 

RELATIONS     BETWEEN     DIFFERENT     LANGUAGES  ; 
TRANSLATION 

It  is  evident  that  any  general  plan  of  study  cannot  be  applied 
to  any  one  language  without  certain  modifications  of  detail. 
There  are,  moreover,  further  modifications  of  detail  dependent 
on  the  special  relations  between  the  language  to  be  learnt  and 
the  student's  own  language.  Thus  German  offers  certain 
special  difficulties  to  an  Englishman,  other  special  difficulties 
to  a  Frenchman,  not  only  in  pronunciation,  but  also  in  gram- 
mar, vocabulary,  and  phraseology.  But  all  these  special 
relations  are  governed  by  the  same  general  laws  of  association 
as  the  ideal  general  plan  of  study  itself. 

Begin  with  a  knowledge  of  one's  own  language. — 

The  first  preparation  for  the  study  of  a  foreign  language  is  the 
acquisition  of  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  peculiarities  of 
one's  own  language.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  first  re- 
quisite for  acquiring  foreign  pronunciations  is  a  practical  know- 
ledge of  the  sounds  of  one's  own  language.  So  also  the  first 
requisite  for  understanding  the  grammatical  structure  of  another 
language  is  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  grammatical  structure 
of  one's  own  language.  This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  we 
should  from  the  first  be  taught  to  regard  the  grammar  of  our 
own  language  from  the  point  of  view  of  general  grammar. 
Just  as  in  the  study  of  the  phonetics  of  a  foreign  language  we 
are  often  surprised  to  find  that  the  germ  of  an  unfamiliar  sound 
exists  already  in  our  own  pronunciation,  so  also  a  systematic 
study  of  English  grammar  enables  an  English  learner  to  point 
out  analogies  to  unfamiliar  foreign  constructions  which  might 
otherwise  escape  his  notice.  Thus  in  Welsh  and  many  other 
languages,  adjunct-words  or  modifiers  follow  the  word   they 

194 


RELATIONS   BETWEEN    LANGUAGES         195 

modify  instead  of  preceding  it  as  in  English.  Thus  the  Welsh 
gwr  givellt,  '  straw  man,  effigy,'  means  literally  '  man  straw.' 
But  in  English  an  adjunct-group  consisting  of  a  preposition  and 
a  noun  follows  the  same  order  as  in  Welsh,  and  we  only  have 
to  think  of  man  (of)  straw  with  the  of  dropped  to  get  the 
Welsh  order,  so  that  by  degrees  we  can  feel  at  home  even  in 
such  complicated  series  as  llonaid  llwy  de  llaelh,  '  tea-spoonful 
of  milk,'  literally  '  fullness  spoon  tea  milk.' 

It  is  as  important  in  grammar  as  in  phonetics  to  have  a  clear 
idea  of  the  defects  and  anomalies  of  one's  own  language; 
which,  again,  points  to  the  importance  of  regarding  the  gram- 
matical structure  of  our  own  language  from  a  general  linguistic 
point  of  view,  as  is  done  in  my  New  English  Grammar.  Thus 
in  English  we  have  a  group  of  defective  verbs,  such  as  may, 
can,  which  have  no  infinitives  or  participles ;  so  that  when  we 
have  occasion  to  use  them  in  the  functions  of  infinitives  or 
participles,  we  have  to  substitute  other  words  for  them  :  /  can 
come,  I  shall  be  able  to  come,  I  have  not  been  able  to  come.  Other 
English  verbs  are  defective  in  other  ways ;  thus  we  cannot 
transfer  he  used  to  go  there  every  year  to  the  present  without  a 
complete  change  of  construction  :  he  goes  there  every  year,  or  he 
is  in  the  habit  of  going  there  every  year.  A  distinct  conscious- 
ness of  these  defects  in  English  helps  the  English  learner  to  get 
over  the  hesitation  he  feels  when  in  speaking  foreign  languages 
he  has  to  use  such  a  construction  as  /  shall  can  .  .  .  ,  especially 
in  a  language  such  as  German,  which  expresses  these  ideas 
with  etymolog'ically  allied  word  (ich  kann,  infinitive  konnen). 
So  also,  as  already  observed,  the  use  of  English  up  in  pack  tip 
is  contrary  to  that  of  most  other  languages,  in  which  '  pack 
up'  suggests  the  idea  of  unpacking,  these  languages  generally 
expressing  the  idea  of  our  pack  up  by  '  pack  in,'  or  some  such 
construction,  unless  they  use  separate  words.  So  if  the  English 
learner  has  once  learnt  to  recognize  that  his  native  use  of  up 
in  such  constructions  as  tie  up,  pack  up,  shut  tip,  is  illogical,  or, 
at  any  rate,  contrary  to  the  genius  of  other  languages,  he  will 
be  more  ready  to  accept  their  divergent  constructions. 

Difficulties  also  arise  from  the  opposite  reason,  namely,  that 
the  native  language  is  more  normal  and  rational  or  simpler 
than  the  foreign  language.  Thus  the  English  speaker  is  apt  to 
feel  impatient  of  the  distinctions  of  grammatical  gender  in 
most  other  European  languages.  He  learns  easily  enough  to 
associate  feminine  definite  articles  with  feminine  nouns,  and  so 


i96     THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

on,  but  is  continually  liable  to  relapse  into  calling  a  tree  or  a 
house  '  it '  instead  of  '  he '  or  '  she,'  even  when  he  knows  the 
gender.  That  son  frcre  in  French  should  mean  '  her  brother  ' 
as  well  as  '  his  brother '  seems  confusing  and  irrational  to  him  : 
he  feels  it  ought  to  be  sa  frere.  It  sounds  even  more  absurd 
to  him  to  talk  of  women  as  le  beau  sexe:  he  feels  the  adjective 
ought  to  be  feminine.  The  only  remedy  for  these  and  similar 
wrong  associations  is  to  regard  the  matter  from  a  rigidly  formal 
and  mechanical  point  of  view— to  suspend  the  reasoning  power, 
or,  in  some  cases,  to  divert  it  into  purely  grammatical  as  opposed 
to  logical  channels. 

The  utilization  of  resemblances  between  the  two  languages — 
whether  the  result  of  affinity  or  accident — has  already  been 
discussed  (p.  89). 

Cross-associations. — We  have  already  seen  (p.  55)  that  the 
closer  the  connection  between  two  languages,  the  greater  chances 
there  are  of  confusions  arising  from  cross-associations.  But 
cross-associations  extend  far  beyond  the  limits  of  comparative 
philology,  and  may  occur  between  any  two  languages  however 
remote  they  may  be  from  one  another  genealogically.  But  in 
such  cases  they  are  confined  mainly  to  the  syntax  and  phrase- 
ology and  general  structure  of  the  two  languages.  But  it  is 
evident  that  if  two  languages  have  any  general  principles  of 
structure  in  common,  there  must  be  a  tendency  to  level  differ- 
ences of  detail.  Thus  the  main  principles  of  word-order  are 
the  same  in  English  and  Chinese,  so  that  the  English  learner 
is  tempted  in  cases  where  the  order  differs  to  make  the  Chinese 
words  follow  the  English  order.  If  the  word-orders  of  two 
languages  follow  fundamentally  distinct  principles,  there  is  less 
effort  required  to  keep  up  differences  in  detail.  So  also  the 
general  similarity  in  structure  and  word-order  in  English  and 
French,  and  also  in  phraseology — all  of  which  is  the  result  partly 
of  independent  development,  partly  of  borrowing — makes  an 
English  speaker  more  apt  to  introduce  English  constructions, 
word-order,  and  phraseology  into  French  than  into  German, 
which,  although  more  directly  cognate  to  English,  is  neverthe- 
less further  removed  in  general  structure. 

Distrust  of  Similarity. — A  linguist  who  has  learnt  a  cer- 
tain number  of  foreign   languages   of  different    families    and 


RELATIONS   BETWEEN   LANGUAGES         197 

different  morphological  structure,  and  has  found  certain  con- 
structions, idioms,  or  developments  of  word-meanings  of  his 
own  language  uniformly  rejected  by  these  foreign  languages, 
gets  at  last  quite  instinctively  into  the  habit  of  mistrusting  the 
associations  of  his  own  language  on  these  points,  so  that  instead 
of  feeling  inclined  to  translate  such  a  sentence  as  ask  him  to 
come  literally,  saying,  for  instance,  in  German,  fragen  Sie  ihn  zu 
kommen,  he  gets  into  the  habit  of  always  expecting  something 
quite  different.  Hence  when  he  comes  to  a  language  such  as 
Arabic,  in  which,  as  in  English,  the  meaning  'interrogate' 
developes  into  that  of  '  request,'  he  resists  the  tendency  to 
reproduce  this  usage  as  strongly  as  he  was  once  carried  away 
by  it.  So  also  it  is  a  surprise  to  an  English  linguist  to  find  the 
Chinese  kien,  '  see,'  used  in  the  sense  of  '  visit.'  The  French 
apprendre par  cornr  we  do  not  distrust  because  we  at  once  con- 
jecture that  the  English  learn  by  heart  is  simply  a  translation  of  it ; 
but  we  should  not  venture  to  transfer  it  to  any  other  language. 

Cross-associations  between  two  foreign  languages. — 
It  is  evident  that  the  more  foreign  languages  we  learn,  the 
greater  our  liability  to  form  cross-associations.  We  not  only 
form  associations  between  our  own  language  and  a  foreign 
language,  but  between  the  foreign  languages  themselves, 
especially  between  the  one  we  are  learning  and  the  one  last 
learnt.  If  an  Englishman,  after  learning  to  speak  Welsh  fluently, 
were  to  go  to  Egypt  and  begin  Arabic  there,  he  would  find 
that,  in  spite  of  the  total  want  of  affinity  between  the  two 
languages,  he  would  be  constantly  substituting  Welsh  for 
Arabic  words  in  his  attempts  at  conversation.  This  influence 
of  the  language  last  learnt  implies  not  only  that  the  language 
last  learnt  has  been  recently  acquired,  but  also  that  it  has  been 
acquired  with  an  effort,  so  that  the  resulting  associations  are 
strongly  impressed  on  the  mind  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  easily 
called  forth  by  the  slightest  external  stimulus ;  if  our  English- 
man had  been  familiar  with  Welsh  from  his  childhood  so  as  to 
be  perfectly  bilingual,  the  influence  of  cross-associations  derived 
from  Welsh  would  be  no  stronger  than  cross-associations 
derived  from  English. 

But  although  want  of  affinity  is  no  safeguard  against  cross- 
associations,  there  is,  of  course,  much  greater  danger  of 
confusion  when  the  foreign  languages  are  cognate.  Every 
comparative  philologist  knows  this  by  experience. 


198    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

Safeguards  against  confusion. — The  great  safeguard 
against  confusions  between  different  languages  is,  of  course,  to 
learn  each  language  separately,  and  bring  one's  study  of  it  to 
some  definite  conclusion  before  beginning  another  language. 

But  a  good  deal  of  help  might  be  afforded  by  systematic 
summaries  of  the  conflicting  associations — the  confusions  and 
divergences — in  each  pair  of  languages. 

Thinking  in  the  Foreign   Language ; 
Not  Translating 

The  remedy  usually  prescribed  is  to  '  learn  to  think  in  the 
foreign  language.'  But  we  cannot  think  in  a  foreign  language 
till  we  have  a  thorough  and  ready  knowledge  of  it ;  so  that  this 
advice — sound  as  it  is  in  itself — does  not  alter  the  fact  that 
when  we  begin  to  learn  a  new  language  we  cannot  help  thinking 
in  our  own  language. 

Thinking  in  the  language  implies  that  each  idea  is  associated 
directly  with  its  expression  in  the  foreign  language  instead  of 
being  associated  first  with  the  native  expression,  which  is  then 
translated  into  the  foreign  language.  This  has  led  many  into 
the  fallacy  that  if  we  were  only  to  get  rid  of  translation  in 
teaching  a  foreign  language,  substituting  pictures  or  gestures, 
we  should  get  rid  of  the  cross-associations  of  our  own  language. 
But  these  cross-associations  are  independent  of  translation. 
They  arise  simply  from  the  fact  that  each  idea  that  comes  into 
our  minds  instantly  suggests  the  native  expression  of  it,  whether 
the  words  are  uttered  or  not :  and  however  strongly  we  may 
stamp  the  foreign  expression  on  our  memories,  the  native  one 
will  always  be  stronger.  This  is  proved  by  the  well-known  fact 
that  in  moments  of  great  excitement,  we  invariably  fall  back  on 
our  native  language  or  dialect.  Even  if  we  admit  that  transla- 
tion strengthens  such  cross-associations,  we  cannot  admit  that 
it  is  the  cause  of  them.  If  it  were,  how  can  we  explain  those 
confusions  between  two  foreign  languages  which  we  have  been 
considering  ?  It  is  not  even  necessary  that  we  should  be  very 
familiar  with  the  language  last  learnt  to  cause  confusion  with 
the  one  we  are  learning :  all  that  is  necessary  to  establish  cross- 
associations  is  that  we  should  have  made  an  effort  to  learn  the 
former  one. 


TRANSLATION  199 

Translation  from  the  Foreign  Language 

Translation  is  of  two  kinds  :  from  the  foreign  language  into 
our  own  language,  and  into  the  foreign  language  from  our  own 
language.  The  great  practical  difference  between  them  is  that 
the  latter  presupposes  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  foreign 
language. 

Translation  from  the  foreign  language  stands  on  quite  a 
different  footing.  It  does  not  imply  any  previous  knowledge 
of  the  word  or  sentence  translated,  and  is  at  the  same  time  the 
most  obvious  and  convenient  way  of  explaining  its  meaning. 
But  some  reformers  wish  to  exclude  even  this  kind  of  transla- 
tion from  the  beginning. 

The  Picture-method. — This  revolt  may  be  seen  carried 
to  its  extreme  in  the  plan  of  teaching  the  vocabulary  of  a 
language  by  means  of  pictures.  This  old  idea  met  with 
a  warm  champion  in  Franke  (Fr.  S.  34).  He  argues  that  the 
'  translation-method '  involves  a  complicated  psychological 
process  :  by  this  method  a  German  learns  the*  meaning  of  the 
French  word  chapeau-  by  first  associating  it  with  its  German 
equivalent  hut,  and  then  associating  Imt  with  the  idea  '  hat ; ' 
but  show  him  the  word  chapeau  in  connection  with  a  picture  of 
a  hat,  and  he  will  be  able  to  establish  a  direct  association 
between  the  word  and  the  idea. 

Such  reasoning  involves  the  fallacy  that  a  psychological 
process  must  necessarily  be  difficult  because  it  is  complicated. 
The  fact  is  that  to  a  German  the  word  hut  and  the  idea  '  hat ' 
are  so  intimately  connected  that  the  one  suggests  the  other 
instantaneously  and  without  effort.  Again,  the  picture  gives 
us  only  part  of  the  ideas  associated  with  the  word  chapeau ;  the 
shape  and  size  of  a  hat  varies,  and  is,  besides,  a  secondary 
matter  compared  with  the  fact  that  a  hat  is  meant  to  protect 
the  head  from  the  weather.  Now  the  great  advantage  of  a 
word  as  opposed  to  a  picture  is  that  it  is  practically  an  epitome 
of  this  whole  group  of  ideas,  and  the  equation  chapeau  —  hut 
enables  a  German  to  transfer  bodily  such  a  group  of  ideas  from 
his  own  to  the  foreign  word.  This  the  picture  cannot  do  \  for 
even  if  we  ignore  everything  but  the  shape  of  the  hat,  we  must 
either  give  pictures  of  every  conceivable  shape  of  hat — tall, 
hard  felt,  soft  felt,  clerical,  sailor,  cocked,  etc. — or  else  risk 
implying  that  chapeau  means  '  tall  hat,'  not  'hat  in  general.' 


200    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

The  picture  method  is,  besides,  very  limited  in  its  applica- 
tion. Pictures  and  diagrams  are  often  useful,  and  sometimes 
almost  indispensable,  but  in  other  cases  they  are  either  in- 
adequate or  useless,  or  absolutely  impracticable,  as  in  dealing 
with  abstract  ideas. 

Explanation  in  the  Foreign  Language. — A  less  ex- 
treme view  is  that  translation  should  be  used  only  as  a  crutch 
for  the  beginner,  to  enable  him  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  the 
foreign  words  and  sentences,  and  should  then  be  thrown  away, 
the  new  foreign  words  being  henceforth  explained  in  the  foreign 
language  itself.  Several  advantages  are  claimed  for  this 
method  by  its  adherents.  The  only  incontestable  one  is  that 
it  affords  additional  practice  in  the  foreign  language.  The 
other  advantage  claimed  for  it  as  well  as  the  picture-method, 
that  it  diminishes  the  risk  of  cross-associations  between  the 
two  languages,  is,  as  we  have  seen,  of  more  theoretical  than 
practical  importance.  We  find  as  a  matter  of  fact  that  cross- 
associations  cannot  be  got  rid  of  by  ignoring  them :  on  the 
contrary,  they  have  an  awkward  habit  of  cropping  up  when  we 
least  expect  them.  We  cannot  get  rid  of  them  for  the  simple 
reason  that  every  idea  is  indissolubly  associated  with  some  word 
or  phrase  in  our  own  language. 

The  main  argument  against  explaining  in  the  foreign  lan- 
guage is  that  as  long  as  we  are  learning  the  foreign  language  it 
is  our  first  business  to  have  it  explained  to  us  as  clearly  and 
unambiguously  as  possible.  Therefore  all  explanations  ought 
to  be  in  the  language  we  know — that  is  our  own — not  in  the 
one  we  do  not  know.  Again,  definitions,  like  pictures,  may  be 
ambiguous  :  if  I  define  a  hat  as  '  a  covering  for  the  head,'  the 
learner  may  think  I  mean  a  cap,  or  a  bonnet,  or  a  hood,  or  a 
helmet.  Or  the  definition,  like  the  picture,  may  be  too  precise. 
Thus,  if  I  define  a  hat  as  '  a  cylindrical  head-covering  with  a 
brim,'  or  show  the  learner  a  picture  of  such  a  hat,  he  may  think 
I  mean  to  restrict  the  meaning  of  the  foreign  word  to  '  tall  hat.' 
It  is  further  evident  that  a  misleading  or  obscure  definition 
will  not  be  made  clearer  by  being  expressed  in  a  partially 
unknown  language. 

But  translation  or  paraphrase  in  the  foreign  language  may 
occasionally  have  its  advantages  for  the  more  advanced  student. 
Nor  can  there  be  any  objection  to  it  in  cases  where  we  can 
rely  with  certainty  on  the  learner  understanding  it  perfectly : 


TRANSLATION  201 

even  if  it  does  no  other  good,  it  will  at  least,  as  remarked 
before,  serve  to  give  him  practice  in  the  foreign  language. 

There  is  one  application  of  such  translation  which  is  directly 
useful  and  instructive.  When  the  advanced  student  comes  to 
read  the  literature  itself,  he  will  derive  much  benefit  from  having 
the  more  out-of-the-way  words  and  phrases  translated  into  the 
corresponding  simpler  forms  in  the  same  language.  This  will 
teach  him  to  discriminate  clearly  between  what  is  general, 
modern,  and  colloquial  on  the  one  hand,  and  what  is  excep- 
tional, archaic,  or  purely  literary  on  the  other  hand.  And  this 
advantage  would  be  lost  if  the  translations  were  into  his  native 
language  only. 

It  would,  indeed,  be  useful,  not  only  for  practical,  but  also 
for  critical  and  philological  purposes,  to  have  complete  idio- 
matic translations  of  older  standard  works  of  literature  into  the 
modern  language — to  have,  for  instance,  a  translation  of  Shake- 
speare into  Modern  English  prose,  a  translation  as  literal  as 
the  divergences  of  the  two  periods  would  allow.  Such  a 
translation  would  be  more  useful  in  many  ways  than  a  com- 
mentary, which,  however  lengthy,  can  never  be  made  exhaustive. 

Translation  makes  knowledge  more  exact. — Trans- 
lation from  the  foreign  into  the  native  language  has  other  and 
higher  uses  than  that  of  being  a  temporary  link  between  the 
foreign  word  and  its  meaning.  When  the  learner  has  once 
clearly  grasped  the  meaning  of  all  the  words  in  a  phrase  by 
means  of  translation,  and  has  also  grasped  the  meaning  of  the 
whole  phrase,  it  is  well  that  he  should  put  aside  his  explanation- 
crutches  for  a  time,  and  learn  to  associate  the  phrase  directly 
with  its  meaning,  without  thinking  of  the  corresponding  phrase 
in  his  native  language  more  than  he  can  help.  He  can  then 
begin  to  think  in  the  foreign  language — '  to  live  himself  into 
it,'  as  the  Germans  say. 

But,  as  Storm  remarks  (Forbedret  Undervisning,  29),  '  the 
living  oneself  into  the  foreign  language  has  also  its  dangers. 
One  easily  accustoms  oneself  to  a  partial  understanding ; 
one  does  not  form  a  definite  idea  of  the  special  shade  of 
meaning,  because  one  has  not  thought  of  corresponding  ex- 
pressions in  the  native  language.  It  is  not  till  one  can  translate 
the  word,  that  one  has  complete  mastery  over  it,  so  that  one 
not  only  understands  it,  but  can  use  it.'  In  fact,  translation 
has  much  the  same  function  in  the  vocabulary  as  grammatical 


202     THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

rules  and  parsing  have  in  construction  :  it  tells  us  how  far 
we  can  go  in  our  unconscious  or  half-conscious  associations. 
Thus,  when  an  Englishman  hears  a  Frenchman  say  in  French, 
I  ask  myself  (je  me  denmnde)  what  this  means,'  he  feels  that 
this  makes  perfectly  good  sense  as  it  stands,  being,  indeed,  a 
possible  English  expression  of  incredulity  or  astonishment. 
But  when  he  has  it  translated  into  its  exact  English  equivalent, 
'  I  wonder  what  it  means,'  he  sees  that  what  he  assumed  to  be 
an  exceptionally  strong  expression  is  a  mere  expletive,  and 
that  he  was  quite  wrong  in  translating  it  mentally  word  for 
word.  Again,  without  this  translation  he  would  be  at  a  loss 
to  find  the  French  equivalent  of  the  English  '  I  wonder  .  .  .' 
In  this  way  translation  is  a  most  valuable  means  of  testing 
the  accuracy  and  correcting  the  mistakes  in  our  unconsciously 
and  mechanically  formed  associations  between  our  ideas  and 
their  expressions  in  the  foreign  language. 

Three  Stages  in  translation. — We  may  distinguish  three 
stages  in  the  use  of  translation.  In  the  first  stage  translation 
is  used  only  as  a  means  of  conveying  information  to  the 
learner :  we  translate  the  foreign  words  and  phrases  into  our 
language  simply  because  this  is  the  most  convenient  and  at  the 
same  time  the  most  efficient  guide  to  their  meaning.  In  the 
second  stage  translation  is  reduced  to  a  minimum,  the  meaning 
being  gathered  mainly  from  the  context — with,  perhaps,  occa- 
sional explanations  in  the  foreign  language  itself.  In  the  third 
stage  the  divergences  between  the  two  languages  will  be 
brought  face  to  face  by  means  of  free  idiomatic  translation. 
To  these  we  may  perhaps  add  a  fourth  stage,  in  which  the 
student  has  so  complete  and  methodical  a  knowledge  of  the 
relations  between  his  own  and  the  foreign  language  that  he  can 
translate  from  the  one  to  the  other  with  ease  and  accuracy. 

Translation  into  the  Foreign  Language ; 
Exercises 

As  already  remarked,  translation  into  the  foreign  language 
presupposes — or  ought  to  presuppose — a  thorough  knowledge 
of  the  foreign  language. 

If  the  arithmetical  fallacy  were  true — if  sentences  could  be 
constructed  a  priori  by  combining  words  according  to  certain 
definite  rules — then  all  that  would  be  required  for  translating 


TRANSLATION;    EXERCISES  203 

into  a  foreign  language  would  be  a  knowledge  of  the  grammar 
and  the  possession  of  a  good  dictionary.  This  is  the  fallacy 
on  which  the  old  practice  of  writing  exercises  was  based. 

In  its  crudest  form  the  exercise-method  consists  in  giving 
the  beginner  half  a  dozen  words  and  a  few  rules,  and  then 
giving  him  detached  sentences  embodying  these  rules  for 
translation  from  and  into  the  foreign  language  either  viva-voce 
or  in  writing  or  in  both-  and  this  from  the  very  beginning. 
Thus  Ahn's  New  Practical  and  Easy  Method  of  learning  the 
German  Language,  after  a  page  or  two  on  pronunciation, 
begins  thus : — 


Masc.  der  Vater,  the  father; 
Fem.  die  Mutter,  the  mother ; 
Neut.  das  Buch,  the  book. 
gut,  good ;  grosz,  tall,  big ;  klein,  small,  little  ;  ist,  is. 

Der  Vater  ist  gut.  Die  Mutter  ist  gut.  Das  Buch  ist  gut. 
Ist  der  Vater  grosz  ?    Ist  die  Mutter  klein.?    1st  das  Buch  gut  ? 

2. 

The  father  is  tall.  The  mother  is  little.  The  book  is  good. 
Is  the  father  good  ?     Is  the  mother  tall  ?     Is  the  book  small  ? ' 

After  sixty  or  seventy  pages  the  learner  has  only  got  as  far 
as  the  following  sentences  : — 

129. 

' bitten,  to  beg,  to  pray,  to  entreat;  der  Krieg,  the  war. 

Do  you  know  of  what  I  am  speaking,  of  what  I  am  thinking  ? 
It  is  not  the  same  street  through  which  we  passed  this  morning, 
the  same  house  where  we  have  been  yesterday.  Are  you 
speaking  of  the  war  ?  Yes,  we  are  speaking  of  it.  Are  you 
thinking  of  the  concert?  We  are  not  thinking  of  it.  Are 
you  satisfied  with  that  ring  ?  I  am.  Why  do  you  not  come 
up  ?  Tell  your  brother  that  I  shall  come  down  immediately. 
Come  in,  my  friends.  I  beg  of  you  to  come  in.  Shall  you 
go  to-night  to  the  play  ?  We  shall  not.  Do  you  know  where 
that  gentleman  lives,  who  he  is,  and  where  he  is  going  ?  We 
do  not.' 

Of  the  more  advanced  use  of  exercises  as  a  supplement  to 


2o4    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

the  detailed  study  of  the  grammar,  the  following  are  examples 
from  Bernays'  German  Exercises ; — 

'R.  23.  a.  Of  the  spoon  Loffel;  of  the  broom  Besen  ;  to 
the  father  Voter.  We  have  a  governor  Gouvernetir.  Of  the 
tea  and  to  the  coffee. 

b.  Of  the  chain-of-mountains  Gebirge ;  of  the  evil  Uebel ; 
to  the  seal  Siegel ;  of  the  knife  Messer;  of  the  young-lady 
Fraukin ;  to  the  little-man  Manncften  (R.  15). 

c.  Of  the  assessor  Assessor ;  to  the  author  Autor.' 

'R.  161.  His  cattle  is  run  away,  and  his  pigeons  are  flown 

Vieh     laufeii  Taiibe   fliegen  (ir.) 

away ;  nevertheless  he  has  worked  on,  as  if  (R.  304)  nothing 

dennoch  arbeiten  fort 

had  (R.  164)  happened. — The  labourers  have  run  after  the 

vor-fallen  knecht 

horses. — They   have   run   in-imitation-of  the   rope-dancers. — 

nach  Seil-tdnzer 

Their  pond  is  fished  out;  now  they  have  done  fishing. — He 

fischen  aus 

has  jumped  after  me.' 
springen  (ir.) 

It  is  instructive  to  compare  these  examples  of  Ahn's  and 
Bernays'  methods.  It  is  evident  that  the  impossible  task  of 
translating  into  an  unknown  or  only  partially  known  language 
can  be  accomplished  only  under  restrictions  which  make  it  either 
an  evasion  or  a  failure. 

In  the  first  place,  translation  from  one  language  into  another 
ought  to  imply  as  a  matter  of  course  that  what  is  translated  has 
a  meaning— that  it  is,  if  not  a  complete  text,  at  least  a  sentence 
with  an  independent  meaning  of  its  own  worth  stating — and,  of 
course,  that  it  as  well  as  the  translation  is  grammatically  and 
idiomatically  correct.  But  such  groups  of  words  as  of  the  tea 
and  to  the  coffee  and  they  have  run  in  imitation  of  the  rope- 
dancers  are  neither  of  them  fit  objects  of  translation  from  Eng- 
lish, the  first  because  it  cannot  have  any  meaning,  the  second 
because  it  is  not  English.  Nor  is  it  enough  that  the  texts  or 
sentences  should  fulfil  the  negative  conditions  of  making  sense 
and  being  expressed  correctly  in  both  languages ;  it  1.;  also 
necessary  that  they  should  express  something  useful,  something 


TRANSLATION;    EXERCISES  205 

worth  saying,  even  if  it  were  only  a  trivial  dialogue  between  a 
traveller  and  a  waiter  at  a  restaurant.  But  although  it  is  con- 
ceivable that  any  one  of  the  sentences  quoted  from  Ahn  might 
occur  in  real  life,  yet  taken  as  a  whole  they  are  impossible  : 
instead  of  the  first  exercises  introducing  the  learner  to  sentences 
and  constructions  which  will  help  him  to  understand  and  express 
what  he  is  most  likely  to  meet  with  first,  they  give  him  a  string 
of  disconnected  ideas  which  he  might  never  have  occasion  to 
hear  expressed  or  to  express  himself,  even  if  he  lived  for  years 
in  the  country  where  the  language  is  spoken. 

Again,  although  the  sentence  about  the  '  rope-dancers  '  is  not 
English,  yet  the  result  of  the  translation  will  certainly  be  a 
fairly  good  German  sentence,  if  a  perfectly  useless  one.  But 
this  result  is  only  obtained  by  giving  so  many  helps  in  the  way 
of  glosses  and  direct  references  to  the  rules  of  the  grammar  that 
the  work  of  translation  becomes  almost  as  great  a  farce  as  if 
the  learner  were  set  to  copy  from  a  book  first  the  English 
original  and  then  the  complete  German  translation.  In  fact, 
such  a  process  would  in  most  respects  be  a  more  instructive 
and  improving  one  ;  for  the  learner  would  have  the  advantage 
of  being  able  to  compare  the  two  languages  in  their  correct 
idiomatic  forms. 

We  have  also  to  realize  what  is  meant  by  making  mistakes 
in  our  exercises  and  correcting  them  afterwards.  It  means  the 
laborious  formation  of  a  number  of  false  associations  which 
must  be  unlearnt  before  the  labour  of  forming  the  correct  ones 
can  be  begun.  Even  when  no  positive  errors  are  made,  the 
writing  of  exercises  which  require  any  thought  must  produce 
vague  and  hesitating,  instead  of  the  clear  and  instantaneous 
associations  which  constitute  a  real  practical  command  of  a 
language. 

And  yet  this  process  of  going  out  of  one's  way  to  make 
mistakes,  and  then  laboriously  correcting  them,  is  almost  the 
only  way  of  learning  languages — at  least,  of  learning  grammar 
— that  some  people  can  conceive.  I  remember,  when  I  first 
went  up  to  Oxford  as  an  undergraduate,  I  told  my  tutor  that  I 
was  rusty  about  some  point  of  Greek  grammar ;  so  he  said, 
'  You  had  better  do  a  paper  on  it.'  I  could  not  help  thinking 
even  then  that  strengthening  one's  false  associations  by  '  doing 
a  paper  '  was  a  curious  preliminary  to  getting  rid  of  them. 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that  the  knowledge  and  con- 
viction that  a  certain  linguistic  combination  is  erroneous  does 


206    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

not  necessarily  get  rid  of  the  false  association  itself,  for  that  is 
a  matter  of  habit,  not  only  of  conviction.  Thus,  if  in  speaking 
German  I  once  get  into  the  habit  of  making '  bread '  masculine 
instead  of  neuter,  even  when  I  am  told  that  brod  is  neuter,  I 
am  still  liable  to  fall  back  into  saying — as  I  once  heard  an 
Englishman  say — (haaban  zij  kainsn  vaisbroud)  through  pure 
force  of  habit.  Getting  rid  of  this  habit  may  imply  that  I 
must  repeat  das  brod  at  least  as  often  as  I  formerly  repeated 
der  brod.  There  was  once  a  professor  who  taught  some  Oriental 
language  by  correspondence.  One  of  his  pupils — a  middle- 
aged  military  man — after  going  through  a  course,  asked  to  be 
allowed  to  go  through  it  again,  so  as  to  perfect  the  knowledge 
already  gained  before  going  any  further.  When  he  did  so,  he 
made  exactly  the  same  mistakes  over  again.  He  then  asked  to 
be  allowed  to  go  over  the  same  course  for  the  third  time.  The 
professor,  who  seems  to  have  been  a  good-natured  fellow, 
was  inclined  to  grant  this  request,  but  was  dissuaded  by  his 
wife. 

As  we  see,  the  only  way  to  avoid  the  necessity  of  making 
mistakes  is  either  practically  to  do  the  work  for  the  learner  by 
giving  him  a  more  or  less  complete  word-for-word  translation  ; 
or  to  make  the  exercises  so  easy  that  they  cost  no  effort,  and 
afford  no  real  practice  at  all,  so  that  they  slip  through  the  mind 
without  making  any  impression,  these  very  easy  exercises  being 
at  the  same  time  necessarily  unidiomatic  and  consequently  of 
little  or  no  use  when  learnt. 

These  facts  are  now  generally  recognized  among  reformers. 
This  is,  indeed,  the  one  point  on  which  there  is  the  greatest 
unanimity  among  them,  namely,  that  everything  of  the  nature 
of  exercise-writing  ought  to  be  abolished,  not  only  in  the 
beginning  but  throughout  the  whole  course. 


Free  Composition  ;  Question  and  Answer 

There  is  also  a  general  agreement  among  reformers  that  the 
place  of  exercises  and  translations  into  the  foreign  language 
should  be  taken  by  free  composition  in  the  foreign  language 
on  subjects  taken  from  the  texts  already  studied,  so  that  the 
compositions  are  reproductions  of  what  is  already  known. 

Continental  reformers  also  make  great  use  of  a  system  of 
question  and  answer  carried  on  in  the  foreign  language  by  the 


FREE   COMPOSITION  207 

teacher  and  pupils,  the  former  asking  the  questions,  the  latter 
answering  them,  or  the  teacher  telling  one  pupil  to  ask  a  certain 
question  of  another  pupil.  The  subjects  of  the  questions  are, 
of  course,  taken  from  the  texts  which  the  pupils  have  just  been 
reading.  Thus  even  a  short  sentence  such  as  we  can  easily  see 
that  the  earth  is  round  by  watching  a  ship  sailing  out  to  sea  can 
be  made  the  subject  of  a  number  of  questions,  such  as  what 
is  the  earth  ?  or  what  is  the  earth  like  ?  or  what  shape  is  the 
earth  ?  \  how  can  we  see  that  it  is  this  shape  ?  or  how  can  we  see 
that  the  earth  is  round?  |  what  can  we  see  by  watching  a  ship 
sailing  out  to  sea  ?  Of  course,  if  any  unfamiliar  word,  such  as 
shape,  is  used  in  the  questions,  it  must  be  explained,  unless  its 
meaning  is  quite  clear  from  the  context. 

This  method  of  question  and  answer  is  older  than  is  commonly 
supposed.  As  I  have  several  times  drawn  on  Bernays  for 
examples  of  bad  methods,  it  is  a  pleasure  to  me  to  be  able  to 
quote  the  following  remarks  from  the  introduction  to  his 
Gcrmati  Reader : — 

'  I  have  always  found  it  very  advantageous  to  my  pupils,  both 
in  private  lessons  and  classes,  to  let  them  translate  back  again 
into  German.  For  this  purpose  I  make  use  of  the  third  section, 
generally  beginning  with  this  kind  of  exercise  about  the  time 
the  student  has  reached  nearly  the  end  of  the  first  section, 
proceeding  at  the  same  time  with  the  construing  of  German 
into  English.  When  the  learner  is  thoroughly  master  of  a 
piece,  however  short,  I  question  him  on  it  in  German,  and 
receive  his  answers  in  the  same  language.  By  this  means,  his 
ear  becomes  familiarized  with  the  pronunciation  of  another 
person  without  the  aid  of  the  eye,  while  he  insensibly  acquires 
the  habit  of  speaking  German  himself.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
first  short  anecdote,  page  119  [I  have  given  this  very  anecdote 
on  p.  167]  ;  I  ask  : — 

Question.    Wer  schricb  an  die  Griechen  ? 

Answer.  Alexander. 

Q.    Was  that  Alexander? 

A.  Er  schricb. 

Q.  A?i  wen  schrieb  er  ? 

A.  A?i  die  Griechen. 

Q.    Was  schrieb  er  an  die  Griechen  ? 

A.  Dasz  sie  ihnfiir  einen  Gott  erkennen  soil  fen. 

Q.  Fur  was  sollten  sie  ihn  erkennen  ? 

A.  Fur  einen  Gott, 


208    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

Q.    Wen  sollten  siefiir  eine?i  Gott  erkennen  ? 

A.  Alexander. 

Q.    Wer  sollten  ihn  fur  einen  Gott  erkennen  ? 

A.  Die  Gricchen. 
1  This  exercise  may  be  continued  and  varied  to  any  extent, 
if  directed  by  any  person  capable  of  conversing  in  German, 
provided  he  is  sufficiently  familiar  with  the  grammar  to  correct 
the  mistakes  of  the  student.' 

I  do  not  know  when  this  preface  was  first  published — cer- 
tainly before  1856,  the  date  of  the  seventh  edition  of  the 
Reader.  Dr.  A.  Bernays,  who  was  professor  of  German 
language  and  literature  in  King's  College,  London,  and  was, 
I  believe,  more  successful  in  the  combination  of  language 
and  literature  than  is  always  the  case,  began  to  publish  his 
helps  for  the  study  of  German  about  1830.  Although  he  was 
under  the  full  influence  of  the  methods  of  detached  sentences 
and  exercise-writing  which  attained  their  most  extravagant 
development  about  his  time,  his  books  contain  many  good 
ideas.  It  is  strange  he  did  not  see  the  absurdity  of  teaching 
his  pupils  to  converse  in  German  about  Alexander  and  the 
Lacedemonians. 

The  purely  oral  exercises  of  question  and  answer  in  the 
foreign  language  should  precede  any  attempts  at  written  repro- 
duction of  what  has  been  learnt,  partly  on  the  general  ground 
that  the  fixed  associations  of  the  ear  should  precede  the 
secondary  and  perhaps  variable  associations  of  the  written 
form  of  the  language,  partly  because  of  the  facility  and  quick- 
ness with  which  they  can  be  worked.  They  have  the  further 
advantage  of  training  the  pupils  both  to  understand  what  is 
said,  and  reproduce  it  with  accuracy  and  ease.  They  are,  in 
fact,  the  best  possible  substitute  for  a  phonetic  method,  although 
they  will  be  ten  times  more  efficient  if  preceded  by  systematic 
training  in  phonetics.  They  are  also  in  the  highest  degree 
stimulating  to  the  pupils,  and  develope  quickness,  presence  of 
mind,  and  the  power  of  observation. 

This  reproductive  or  '  imitative '  method  has  the  great 
advantage  of  being  progressive.  The  questions  and  answers 
may  be  exact  literal  reproductions  of  what  has  been  learnt,  or 
they  may  be  free  paraphrases  of  it.  The  questions  may  also 
embody  new  words,  which,  again,  may  be  expressly  pointed 
out,  and  explained,  either  beforehand  or  afterwards,  or  left  to 
be  inferred  from  the  context. 


VISUALIZING  209 

So  also  with  the  written  compositions.  At  first  the  pupils 
will  simply  be  expected  to  write  down  from  memory  the  subject 
of  what  they  have  been  studying.  Then  they  may  be  set  to 
write  an  essay  on  a  subject  analogous  to  that  of  the  text  they 
have  been  studying.  In  this  way  the  written  compositions 
become  gradually  more  and  more  independent  of  the  texts, 
and  more  and  more  general  in  their  subjects,  as  the  learner's 
command  of  the  language  is  widened,  till  at  last  he  is  able  to 
express  himself  both  in  speaking  and  writing  on  any  ordinary 
topic. 

Visualizing 

By  visualizing  we  understand  the  establishment  of  a  direct 
association  of  the  words  and  sentences  of  the  foreign  language 
with  the  ideas  they  express  by  means  of  a  direct  appeal  to  the 
sense  of  sight.  This  can  be  effected  in  three  principal  ways, 
namely,  by — 

(1)  Object-lessons — the  presentive  or  object-method:  'here 
is  a  piece  of  chalk,'  '  this  is  called  a  black  board,'  '  this  is  my 
nose.' 

(2)  Models,  pictures,  diagrams — the  representive  or  pictorial 
method. 

(3)  Gestures,  mimicry — the  dramatic  method. 

It  is  also  possible  to  establish  direct  associations  independent 
of  the  help  of  a  second  language  by  appealing  to  the  other 
senses.  Thus  the  teacher  may  illustrate  '  cock  '  or  '  fowl '  not 
only  by  exhibiting  a  picture  of  the  bird,  and  by  the  dramatic 
method  of  flapping  his  arms  and  raising  himself  on  tiptoe,  but 
also  by  an  imitation  of  its  crow.  So  also  the  pupils  may  be 
invited  to  taste  sugar,  salt,  tartaric  acid,  and  alum  in  connection 
with  a  study  of  the  foreign  words  expressing  the  accompanying 
sensations  of  taste.  But  the  visual  impressions  are  evidently 
the  only  ones  of  which  any  extended  use  can  be  made. 

Of  the  purely  visualizing  methods,  it  is  evident  that  the  first 
two  are  best  suited  for  words  expressing  concrete  ideas,  the 
last  for  words  expressing  phenomena  and  actions. 

But  they  are  all  limited  in  their  application.  And  of  those 
associations  which  can  be  established  by  visual  means,  many 
are,  as  we  have  seen,  vague  and  ambiguous  as  compared  with 
those  established  by  means  of  translation.  It  is  so  even  with 
the  object-method.     Thus  a  cube  of  boxwood  may  just  as  well 

p 


210    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

suggest  the  idea  of  '  wood '  as  that  of  '  cube  * '  a  piece  of  sugar 
may  suggest  the  idea  of  '  sugar  in  general,'  or  it  may  suggest 
the  narrower  ideas  of  '  loaf  sugar  '  or  '  white  sugar  ' — which, 
again,  may  be  subdivided  into  '  cane  sugar '  and  '  beet-root 
sugar ' — or  '  lump  of  sugar.'  It  ought  also  to  suggest  the  idea 
of  '  lump  '  or  '  piece '  in  the  abstract ;  but  even  if  a  piece  of 
chalk,  a  piece  of  coal,  and  a  piece  of  bread  were  exhibited 
together  with  the  lump  of  sugar,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that 
the  class  would  grasp  what  was  meant. 

Pictures  are  even  more  liable  to  be  misunderstood.  Let  us 
suppose  two  pictures,  one  of  a  human  head,  the  other  of  a 
railway  station,  with  numbers  and  dotted  lines  leading  to 
various  parts  of  the  pictures,  these  numbers  referring  to  an 
accompanying  vocabulary  of  the  foreign  words  expressing  the 
ideas  supposed  to  be  excited  in  the  learner's  mind  by  the  con- 
templation of  these  pictures — a  contemplation  which,  if  he  is 
not  much  interested  in  the  subject  of  either  picture,  he  will 
perhaps  enter  on  only  with  a  certain  effort  and  without  much 
attention  to  details.  His  first  difficulty  will  be  a  mechanical 
one ;  as  the  pictures  are  shaded  in  some  parts,  he  sometimes 
cannot  see  clearly  where  the  dotted  lines  lead  to :  a  certain 
line  may  point  to  the  pupil  of  the  eye,  or  the  iris,  or  the  cornea, 
or  it  may  indicate  the  bridge  of  the  nose.  Then  comes  the 
old  difficulty  of  determining  the  degree  of  generality  of  the 
ideas  called  forth  by  the  pictures :  is  the  eye,  or  only  the  pupil 
of  the  eye,  meant  ?  is  the  number  to  be  taken  literally  as  indi- 
cating the  dial  of  the  clock,  or  does  it  imply  '  clock '  generally  ? 
does  the  other  number  refer  to  the  railway  carriage  as  a  whole, 
or  only  to  its  roof  ?  In  fact,  did  I  not  possess  enough  know- 
ledge of  the  foreign  language  to  know  that  whatever  wagon 
may  mean,  it  does  not  mean  '  roof,'  I  should  find  these  pictures 
most  misleading  guides. 

Gestures  are  equally  liable  to  be  misunderstood. 

The  argument  that  the  substitution  of  visualizing  methods 
for  translation  prevents  cross-associations  is,  as  we  have  seen, 
a  fallacy. 

If  we  did  not  use  a  phonetic  notation,  there  would  indeed 
be  something  in  the  argument  that  visualizing  methods  enable 
us  to  save  the  learner  the  confusions  that  result  from  letting 
him  see  words  written  in  an  unphonetic  spelling.  But  no 
teacher  who  has  once  used  the  phonetic  method  will  ever  think 
of  wasting  time  over  such  an  inefficient  method  of  teaching 
pronunciation. 


CHAPTER    XV 

CONVERSATION 

Conversation  in  a  foreign  language  may  be  regarded  from 
two  very  different  points  of  view:  (i)  as  an  end  in  itself,  and 
(2)  as  a  means  of  learning  the  language  and  testing  the  pupil's 
knowledge  of  it.  But  there  is,  of  course,  no  reason  why  the 
second  process  should  not  be  regarded  as  being  at  the  same 
time  a  preparation  for  the  first. 

The  difficulty  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  utility  of  conver- 
sation, is  due  to  the  quickness  and  presence  of  mind  that  it 
requires.  What  we  speak  we  have  to  know  perfectly ;  and  we 
must  have  it  ready  at  a  moment's  notice.  Even  the  elementary 
question-and-answer  method  described  above  requires  that  the 
pupil  should  have  thoroughly  mastered  the  little  he  knows. 

Hence  every  speaker's  knowledge  must  be  definitely  limited 
within  comparatively  narrow  boundaries.  Even  in  our  own 
language  we  can  only  speak  one  special  form  of  it.  It  is  true 
that  our  knowledge  is  not  confined  to  the  spoken  language, 
but  extends  to  the  literary  language,  and  even  to  the  archaic 
literary  language.  But  although  we  know  the  literary  language 
well  enough  to  be  able  to  read  it  with  perfect  ease,  and  per- 
haps to  write  it  in  its  modern  form,  we  cannot  speak  it  for  any 
length  of  time  without  the  risk  of  continual  relapses  into  the 
colloquial.  The  language  of  a  few  generations  back  we  can 
neither  speak  nor  write. 

We  speak  our  own  colloquial  language  without  hesitation 
in  spite  of  the  confusing  associations  of  the  written  language, 
because  our  associations  with  the  former  are  by  far  the  stronger; 
and  the  only  way  to  acquire  a  colloquial  style  of  speech  in  a 
foreign  language  is  to  make  our  associations  with  the  spoken 
language  stronger  than  those  with  the  written  language — by 
beginning  with  the  spoken  language  and  confining  ourselves 

211 


212     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

exclusively  to  it  till  we  can  handle  it  with  ease  and  certainty. 

I  We  have  seen  also  that  this  is  the  rational  method,  whether  we 

I  wish  to  learn  the  language  for  conversational  purposes  or  not. 

/       This  does  not  by  any  means  imply  that  the  beginner  should 

learn  dialogues  about  railway  travelling  and  life  in  hotels,  but 

merely  that  his  elementary  training  should  not  be  such  as  to 

unfit  him  for  doing  so  hereafter,  if  he  has  occasion  to  travel 

abroad  or  converse  with  foreigners. 

Phrase-books 

We  will  now  consider  what  ought  to  be  the  character  of  the 
dialogue-  or  phrase-books  intended  for  this  special  purpose. 

As  regards  the  ordinary  phrase-books,  the  want  of  phonetic 
notation  is  alone  enough  to  make  them  useless. 

But  they  are  often  quite  as  defective  in  their  idioms.  Not 
only  is  there  a  want  of  system  in  selecting  the  really  useful  and 
necessary  idioms,  and  rejecting  or  subordinating  the  others, 
but  the  idioms  and  phrases  given  are  often  incorrect  from  the 
point  of  view  of  ordinary  speech,  being  archaic,  or  literary,  or 
vulgar,  or,  what  is  worse  still,  the  result  of  mistranslation  or 
over-literal  translation  of  some  foreign  idiom. 

Most  phrase-book  writers  fail  to  reproduce  the  natural  spoken 
language,  partly  from  want  of  preparatory  training  in  the 
practical  study  of  languages,  partly  from  fear  of  being  thought 
vulgar,  but  also  from  pretentiousness  and  conceit,  which  leads 
them  into  a  spurious  literary  style,  so  that  their  dialogues  read 
like  extracts  from  badly  written  novels.  Thus  Franke  remarks 
that  German  grammars  and  phrase-books  for  foreigners  generally 
give  eilen  Sie  !  \  dieses  ist  mein  Bruder  instead  of  the  colloquially 
idiomatic  beeilen  Sie  sick  or  mac/ien  Sie  schncll  \  das  (kier)  ist 
mein  Bruder.  I  find  in  English  phrase-books  such  fossils  as 
may  1  have  the  pleasure  of  drinking  wine  with  you,  Miss?  |  your 
health,  Sir  !  together  with  dinner-table  comments  such  as  this 
beef  is  delicious  :  it  melts  in  the  mouth  \  I  love  fat.  In  some  of 
these  books  a  wife  is  still  a  good  lady.  On  these  principles 
learned  foreigners  might  address  impudent  cabmen  with  zounds, 
sirrah  /  or  even  'sdeath !  Some  compilers  of  phrase-books 
seem  to  forget  that  we  no  longer  cut  our  pens  or  snuff  our 
candles.  Storm  quotes  from  Otto's  French  conversation- 
grammar  la  servante  nettoie  la  chambre,  which,  he  says,  would 
make  the  same  impression  on  a  Frenchman  as  the  handmaiden 


CONVERSATION  213 

cleanses  the  chamber  would  on  an   Englishman ;    the  correct 
modern  form  is  la  bofine  fait  la  chambre. 

It  is  interesting  to  compare  the  modern  phrase-books  or 
1  parleurs '  with  a  much  older  specimen  of  this  kind  of  litera- 
ture— the  Hermeneumata  or  Interpretamenta  of  the  Greek  Julius 
Pollux,  who  was  born  150  a.d.  and  died  in  208,  and  was  pro- 
fessor of  literature  at  Athens  under  the  reign  of  Commodus. 
His  book  was  intended  primarily  for  the  use  of  Greeks  who 
wished  to  learn  to  speak  Latin.  The  following  extracts  are 
from  A.  Boucherie's  edition  in  Notices  et  cxtraits  dcs  mamiscrits 
de  la  Bibliotheque  JVationale,  Tome  xxiii.,  scconde  partie  (1872), 
with  most  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  orthography  unaltered  (the 
manuscript  is  a  ninth-century  copy  of  an  older  text),  but  with 
the  text  written  continuously  instead  of  in  two  columns  of 
mostly  single  words,  one  column  Greek,  the  other  Latin,  as  in 
the  original : 

'  Epide    or5    pollous    epithu-  Quoniam  video  multos  cupi- 

mountas    ellenisti    dialegesthai  entes  graece  disputare  et  latinae, 

kai     r5maeisti,    mete     eukerSs  neque  facile  posse  propter  diffi- 

dinasthai,  dia  ten  diskerian  kai  cultatem  et   multitudinem   ver- 

poluplethian   ton    rematon,  ouk  borum,  non  peperci  hoc  facere 

ephisamen  touto  poiesai,  eina  en  ut  in  tribus  libris  interpretoriis 

trisin  bibliois  ermeneumatikois  omnia  verba  conscribam. 
panta  ta  remata  sungrapsomai. 

Arkomai   graphin  apo  alpha  Incipio     scribere    ab     alpha 

eos  6.  usque  o.' 

I  will  now  give  the  Latin  text  only  : — 

'  Bona  fortuna,  dii  propitii. 

Preceptor,  have.  Quoniam  volo  et  vaide  cupio  loqui  graece 
et  latinae,  rogo  te,  magister,  doce  me. 

Ego  faciam,  si  me  adtendas. 

Adtendo  diligentur. 

Quoniam  ergo  video  te  hujus  rei,  hoc  est,  ejus  interpreta- 
tionis  quae  dicitur  latinae,  cupientem,  demonstrabo  tibi,  fili, 
quoniam  non  est  cujuslibet  hominis  deprehendere,  sed  docti 
et  ingeniosi  esse  doctrinam.  Propter  hoc  etiam  tibi  magis, 
qui  nescis  nihil  disputare,  exponam.  Opus  ergo  tibi  est  quae 
praecipio  :  auditus,  memoria,  sensus ;  usus  cotidianos  artificem 
facit. 

Hoc  tibi,  si  praesteteris  mercedes,  potes  discere.  Duo  ergo 
sunt  personae  quae  disputant,  ego  et  tu  :  tu  es  qui  interrogas, 
ego  respondeo.     Ante  omnia  ergo  lege  clare,  diserte. 


214    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

Libenter  te  vidi  |  Et  ego  te. 

Quis  pulsat  ostium  ?  |  A  Caio  ad  Lucium.   Si  hie  est,  nuntia. 

Venit  a  Caio.  |  Roga  ilium. 

Quid  est,  puer?  j  Omnia  recte,  etiam  domine.  Misit  tibi 
epistolam  signatam.  |  Da  legam.  Scripsit  mihi  de  negotio. 
Vade,  puer,  et  nuntia  quoniam  venio. 

Date  mini  calciamenta ;  adfer  aquam  ad  faciem ;  da  subar- 
male,  cinge  me ;  da  togam,  operi  me ;  da  penulam  et  annulos. 

Quid  stas,  sodalis  ?  Tolle  quae  opus  sunt,  et  veni  mecum  ; 
festino  ad  amicum  antiquum,  senatorem  populi  Romani,  qui  a 
Romulo  deducit  genus,  a  Trojanis  Aeneadarum.' 

It  will  be  seen  from  these  specimens  that  Pollux'  dialogues 
are,  on  the  whole,  neither  better  nor  worse  than  most  modern 
ones.  Although  generally  simple  and  to  the  point,  the  pedant 
has  certainly  triumphed  over  the  practical  linguist  in  the  last 
sentence,  of  which  Ollendorff  himself  need  not  be  ashamed. 
The  succeeding  dialogues  deal  in  the  same  way  with  such  subjects 
as  going  to  the  shops,  taking  a  bath,  dining.  The  writer  often 
falls  into  the  mistake  of  bare  enumeration  of  words  belonging 
to  the  same  category  without  adding  anything  to  differentiate 
them  (p.  173),  as  in  praecide  cervum  et  gallinam  et  leporem  et 
colliculos.  Indeed,  he  soon  tires  altogether  of  such  trivial 
compositions,  which  afford  him  no  opportunity  of  displaying 
his  learning  and  rhetorical  skill,  and  his  book  degenerates  into 
a  mere  vocabulary  of  words  arranged  roughly  under  categories. 
He  begins  with  the  names  of  divinities,  then  goes  on  to  the 
signs  of  the  zodiac,  enumerates  the  constellations  and  stars, 
then  gives  words  relating  to  the  atmosphere  and  its  phenomena, 
the  winds,  seasons,  divisions  of  time,  terms  relating  to  medicine, 
navigation,  civil  government,  military  organization,  agriculture, 
names  of  trees,  edifices,  relationship,  serpents  (!),  parts  of  a 
city,  the  different  trades  and  professions,  and  so  on. 

If  we  compare  the  Hermetieumata  of  Pollux  with  the  Colloquy 
of  Archbishop  ^Elfric  and  his  disciple  yElfric  Bata,  composed 
about  1000,  we  cannot  hesitate  to  give  the  palm  to  our  own 
countrymen.  The  full  title  of  the  work  is  Colloquium  ad  pueros 
linguae  Latinae  locutione  exercendos,  ab  sElfrico  primum  compi- 
lation, et  deinde  ab  sElfrico  Bata,  ejus  discipulo,  auctu?n, 
Lati?ie  et  Saxonice.  These  dialogues  are  not  only  good  from 
a  pedagogic  point  of  view,  but  have  intrinsic  merits  of  their 
own.  They  are  inspired  by  a  liberal  and  humane  spirit,  and 
are  full  of  graphic  descriptions  and  incidents.     Accordingly, 


CONVERSATION  215 

in  my  First  Steps  in  Old  English  I  have  taken  the  Old  English 
interlinear  version  of  them,  and  made  it  into  an  idiomatic  Old 
English  text.  The  following  are  specimens  of  the  original 
Latin : — 

1  Nos  pueri  rogamus  te,  magister,  ut  doceas  nos  loqui  Lati- 
aliter  recte,  quia  idiote  sumus,  et  corrupte  loquimtir. 

Quid  vultis  loqui  ? 

Quid  curamus  quid  loquamur,  nisi  recta  locutio  sit  et  utilis, 
non  anilis  aut  turpis  ? 

Vultis  flagellari  in  discendo  ? 

Carius  est  nobis  flagellari  pro  doctrina  quam  nescire ;  sed 
scimus  te  mansuetum  esse,  et  nolle  inferre  plagas  nobis,  nisi 
cogaris  a  nobis. 

Interrogo  te  quid  mihi  loqueris  ?  quid  habes  operis  ? 

Professus  sum  monachum,  et  psallam  omni  die  septem 
sinaxes  cum  fratribus,  et  occupatus  sum  lectionibus  et  cantu ; 
sed  tamen  vellem  interim  discere  sermocinari  Latina  lingua. 

Quid  sciunt  isti  tui  socii  ? 

Alii  sunt  aratores,  alii  opiliones,  quidam  bubulci,  quidam 
venatores,  alii  piscatores,  alii  aucupes,  quidam  mercatores, 
quidam  sutores,  quidam  salinatores,  quidam  pistores  loci. 

Quid  dicis  tu,  arator ;  quomodo  exerces  opus  tuum  ? 

O  mi  domine,  nimium  laboro.  Exeo  diluculo,  minando 
boves  ad  campum,  et  jungo  eos  ad  aratrum.  Non  est  tam 
aspera  hiemps  ut  audeam  latere  domi,  pre  timore  domini  mei ; 
sed  junctis  bobus  et  confirmato  vomere  et  cultro  aratro,  omni 
die  debeo  arare  integrum  agrum  aut  plus. 

Habes  aliquem  socium  ? 

Habeo  quendam  puerum  minantem  boves  cum  stimulo,  qui 
etiam  modo  raucus  est  pre  frigore  et  clamatione.' 

Neither  Pollux  nor  the  Archbishop  need  fear  a  comparison 
with  the  following  extract  from  Waddy's  English  Echo  (10th 
edition,  1877),  in  which  I  have  enclosed  superfluous  words  and 
word-groups  in  (  ),  so  as  to  enable  the  reader  better  to  realize 
the  Gladstonian  verbosity  of  the  language  : — 

'  A  little  bread,  (if  you)  please. — Will  you  be  good  enough 
to  pass  (me)  the  salt  ?  I  do  not  think  this  soup  is  sufficiently 
seasoned. —  My  husband  is  so  very  fond  of  salt  and  (of)  sugar. 
I  tell  him  sometimes  that  if  he  eats  so  much  sugar  he  will  get 
shockingly  stout. — Do  not  terrify  me  in  that  way ;  I  should 
be  horrified  if  I  thought  I  was  likely  to  be  a  fat  man. — I 
remember  when  you  were  in  Germany  you  were  very  slim  and 


216     THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

agile.1  Our  friends  gave  you  the  nickname  of  the  active 
Englishman. — I  do  not  think  I  could  run  or  leap  as  I  used  to 
(do)  then.  I  have  not  tried  anything  in  that  way  since  I 
became  sedate  so  many  years  ago. — Why,  then,  we  must  now 
call  you  the  lazy  Englishman. — (Oh  dear  !)  that  is  worse  than 
ever;  I  hate  to  be  thought  slow  and  torpid. — May  I  have  the 
pleasure  (,  Madam,)  of  assisting  you  to  some  wine  ? — Thank  you 
(,  Sir,)  that  is  Sherry ;  if  you  will  allow  me  I  will  trouble  you  for 
some  of  the  Bucellas.  It  is  in  the  other  decanter. — Adolph, 
you  and  I  must  drink  a  bumper  (with  each  other)  in  memory 
of  bygone  times. — Your  very  good  health,  my  old  friend  ! — 
And  yours,  and  that  of  your  wife  and  family  ! — Will  you  let  me 
send  you  some  of  this  grouse,  or  would  you  prefer  some 
venison  ?  —Thank  you,  I  will  wait  for  a  piece  of  your  old 
English  roast  beef,  of  which  I  have  heard  so  much. — I  am 
sorry  (that)  we  have  none  to-day.  But  there  is  a  very  nice 
shoulder  of  mutton. — I  will  ask  you  for  some  of  that  macaroni 
pudding. — Charlotte,  you  are  drinking  with  your  mouth  full, 
that  is  very  unlady-like  indeed.  John,  remove  these  things 
and  bring  us  the  dessert  and  wine. — Try  some  port,  Adolph;  I 
think  you  will  approve  of  it ;  or  would  you  prefer  claret  ?  You 
always  had  the  reputation  of  being  a  good  judge  of  wines,2  so 
I  will  accept  your  recommendation. —  Emily,  here  are  your 
walnuts ;  I  will  break  them  open 3  for  you. — Charles  !  Charles  ! 
you  are  cracking  those  nuts  with  your  teeth ;  you  should  use 
the  nut-crackers. — I  have  not  got  any,  mama. — There  is  a  pair 
just  under  the  edge  of  your  plate  ;  what  a  careless  little  fellow 
you  are. — Now,  my  children,  go  with  your  mama.  May  this 
little  gentleman,  Charley,  stay  with  us  once?  Yes,  if  he  will 
behave  himself  very  well. — We  will  rejoin  you,  my  dear, 
directly.  Now,  Adolph,  draw  your  chair  nearer  the  fire  and 
fill  your  glass  again. — These  pears  are  very  large  and  fine.  Do 
you  grow  them  yourself  ? — No,  I  have  no  garden  here  of 
any  size.  My  wife  got  them  in  Covent  Garden  Market. — 
Really,  I  must  felicitate 4  you  upon  having  so  beautiful  and 
amiable  a  wife.  I  am  delighted  with  her. — You  will  like  her 
better  the  more  you  know  of  her.  Her  beauty  is  her  least 
recommendation.     She  is  my  greatest  treasure.' 

This  could  never  have  been  genuine  English  conversation, 

1  =  active;  the  word  agile  is  put  to  avoid  the  repetition  of  active;  but 
this  is  literary,  not  colloquial. 

2  =  wine.  3  break  open  =  crack.  *  —  congratulate. 


CONVERSATION  217 

not  even  in  i860,  about  which  time  Storm  supposes  this  book 
was  first  published,  although  it  must  be  admitted  that  the 
matter  of  these  dialogues  is  generally  good.  Strange  to  say, 
Jeaffreson  and  Boensel's  English  Dialogues  (1891)  are  even 
more  stilted,  though  in  a  different  way.  Take  such  a  sentence 
as  this : 

'  The  practical  results  of  science  during  that  period  are  doubt- 
less unsatisfactory,  but  still  I  think  they  have  been  underrated. 
If  Nature  was  not  interrogated  as  she  has  been  since,  there  was 
notwithstanding  a  considerable  improvement  in  the  mechanical 
arts,  so  far  as  they  affect  the  daily  comforts  of  life.  Besides, 
we  cannot  deny  that  the  foundations  of  chemistry  and  optics 
were  laid  in  that  period.  The  art  of  navigation,  even  before 
the  invention  of  the  compass,  was  greatly  improved,  and  you 
must  not  forget  that  the  printing-press  belongs  to  what  are 
called  the  middle-ages,  though  coming  within  a  few  years  of 
their  expiration.  There  are  many  other  points  I  might  urge 
in  favour  of  a  more  respectful  attitude  towards  the  science  of 
the  middle-ages,  but  I  must  leave  you  now,  as  I  have  an 
appointment.' 

This  is  preaching,  not  talking.  But  even  in  the  lighter 
dialogues  there  is  a  constant  substitution  of  unnecessary 
artificialities  for  plain  colloquialisms,  such  as  your  very  humble 
servant  for  /,  together  with  archaisms  such  as  how  is  that,  pray  ? 
and,  what  is  strange  in  a  book  for  foreigners,  unnecessary 
insertion  of  foreign  expressions  such  as  nuit  blanche,  auf 
wiedersehen  ! 

As  a  further  illustration  of  the  difficulty  of  getting  really 
idiomatic  conversational  language,  I  may  refer  to  Spoken 
English :  Everyday  Talk,  by  E.  A.  True,  which  was  originally 
a  translation  of  Franke's  Phrases  de  tons  les  jours.  How  mis- 
leading a  guide  it  is,  may  be  seen  from  the  following  examples  : 

'  Since  the  month  of  August  we  have  constantly  had  fine 
weather  (=  we  have  had  constant  fine  weather  since  August). 
Please,  put  a  fire  in  my  room.  He  resembles  his  eldest 
brother.  Put  the  lamp  on  the  piano ;  it  is  too  much  exposed 
here  and  might  be  upset.  Mary,  pick  up  your  hat,  it  is  lying 
on  the  floor,  and  then  don't  let  your  toys  lie  about  everywhere. 
Remove  these  things  from  the  table ;  they  are  in  my  way.  On 
his  way  to  Paris  he  must  needs  pass  through  this  place.' 

Prof.  Jespersen,  who  re-edited  this  work,  has  got  rid  of 
most  of  the  worst  faults  of  the  original,  but  it  is  hopeless  to 


218    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

try  to  make  idiomatic  dialogues  by  translation;    one  of  the 
languages  must  sacrifice  its  individuality. 

In  short,  it  should  be  clearly  understood  that  to  write  plain 
colloquial  dialogues  is  a  task  of  great  difficulty,  and  should 
not  be  undertaken  without  preparation— quite  apart  from  a 
knowledge  of  phonetics.  No  one  but  a  native  should  ever 
attempt  it. 

In  the  present  dearth  of  really  useful  and  reliable  phrase- 
books,  the  safest  way  of  learning  conversational  idioms  is  to 
read  novels  and  comedies,  selecting  those  idioms  which  seem 
most  useful  and  passing  over  the  rest.  But  this  is  a  slow  and 
difficult  process,  and  requires  a  peculiar  linguistic  tact  and  a 
special  kind  of  memory  to  produce  good  results  (p.  122).  It  is 
also  difficult  for  the  foreigner  to  know  whether  the  idioms  are 
really  modern  colloquialisms  such  as  he  can  safely  assimilate 
without  fear  of  falling  into  archaisms  on  the  one  hand,  and 
vulgarity  or  slanginess  on  the  other.  Plays  are,  on  the  whole, 
not  so  good  as  novels  for  this  purpose,  as  the  stage  in  most 
countries  seems  to  develope  a  traditional  and  conventional 
colloquial  style  of  its  own. 

The  difficulty  of  learning  the  spoken  language  from  literature 
lies  deeper  than  this  :  it  is  the  result  of  the  literary  being 
necessarily  anti-commonplace.  We  do  not  go  to  literature  to 
find  a  photograph  of  our  everyday  life  and  talk  :  we  seek  the 
flavour  of  originality  and  divergence  from  the  associations  of 
ordinary  life.  Even  when  humorous  literature  is  founded  on 
descriptions  of  the  commonplace,  the  result  is  seldom  anything 
that  the  foreign  learner  can  assimilate  with  advantage. 

We  must,  therefore,  have  books  specially  written  for  this 
purpose,  and  for  no  other.  The  best  book  of  the  kind  that  has 
hitherto  appeared  is  Storm's  edition  of  Bennett's  Norwegian 
Phrase-book.1  But  as  it  is  mainly  intended  for  tourists  who 
know  little  or  nothing  of  the  language,  it  does  not  claim  to  be 
anything  but  a  rough  guide,  the  idioms  being  arranged  alpha- 
betically for  ready  reference. 

1  This  book  has  since  been  re-edited  by  another  hand,  and  the  phonetic 
transcription  has  been  discarded. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

LITERATURE  ;    LITERARY  COMPOSITION 

In  a  rationally  progressive  method  of  learning  languages  the 
approach  to  the  literature  of  the  foreign  language  will  be  made 
gradually.  The  learner,  as  he  advances,  will  be  able  to  choose 
his  texts  with  greater  freedom  and  with  less  subordination  of 
matter  to  form,  till  at  last  he  is  able  to  read  with  profit  the 
actual  literature  itself,  unmodified  and  uncurtailed. 

As  there  are  gradations  in  the  approach  to  the  literature,  so 
also  there  will  be  gradations  in  the  study  of  the  literature  itself. 
The  student  will,  of  course,  begin  with  modern  prose  in  its 
simplest  form  and  that  which  approximates  most  closely  to  the 
spoken  language.  In  fact,  some  of  this  simpler  literature  will 
perhaps  be  already  familiar  to  him  in  the  pre-literature  stage 
(p.  181).  He  will  then  proceed  gradually  to  the  higher  rheto- 
rical and  imaginative  prose,  and  then  to  archaic  prose  and 
poetry. 

This  procedure  is  quite  opposed  to  the  older  method  of  not 
only  introducing  the  learner  to  the  literature  of  the  language 
before  he  has  mastered  its  vocabulary  and  grammar,  but  ot 
making  its  classics  the  vehicle  of  elementary  instruction.  This 
is  much  as  if  a  music-teacher  were  to  give  his  pupils  classical 
sonatas  to  learn  the  notes  on  instead  of  beginning  with  scales 
and  exercises.  Even  in  Latin  there  is  no  necessity  for  begin- 
ning with  such  an  author  as  Virgil,  whose  literary  merits  no 
beginner  can  be  expected  to  appreciate  ;  in  a  modern  language 
there  is  no  excuse  whatever  for  such  a  course. 

Besides,  when  the  classics  of  a  language  are  ground  into 
pupils  who  have  neither  knowledge  enough  of  the  language  to 
appreciate  their  stylistic  merits,  nor  maturity  of  mind  and  taste 
to  appreciate  their  ideas,  the  result  is  often  to  create  a  disgust 
for  literature  generally. 

219 


220    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

Composition 

The  ambitious  student  who  aspires  to  original  composition 
in  the  higher  literary  style  of  the  foreign  language  must  work 
his  way  up  cautiously  and  slowly,  beginning  with  more  or  less 
free  reproduction  of  what  he  has  read,  at  first  in  an  almost 
colloquial  style,  then  in  a  higher  literary  diction. 

The  simplest  and  most  spontaneous  form  of  literary  com- 
position is  letter-writing,  which  is  at  the  same  time  the  most 
useful.  Letter-writing  is,  indeed,  the  only  form  of  literary 
composition  that  most  people  ever  attain  to,  even  in  their 
own  language. 

Even  in  letter-writing  we  must  firmly  resist  the  temptation 
to  imitate  ornate  literary  models  in  the  foreign  language. 
I  have  already  remarked  that  a  too  early  introduction  to  the 
masterpieces  of  literature  often  inspires  the  learner  with  a  dis- 
like for  literature  generally.  But  it  may  have  the  opposite 
effect  of  rousing  too  much  enthusiasm — a  too  burning  desire 
to  emulate  the  example  of  the  great  masters  of  literary  style. 
There  was  once  a  firm  of  German  merchants  at  Hamburg  who 
had  a  native  clerk  to  do  the  foreign  correspondence,  which  he 
did  very  well  on  the  whole,  his  only  failing  being  a  weakness 
for  fine  writing,  the  result  of  assiduous  devotion  to  the  works  of 
Byron  and  Bulwer  Lytton.  It  happened  in  course  of  time  that 
the  firm  received  a  consignment  of  leeches  from  England. 
The  passage  was  rough,  and  as  the  leech  is  a  delicate  insect, 
the  result  was  that  the  German  clerk  wrote  a  letter  to  the 
English  firm  in  which  he  said,  'Dear  Sirs,  we  beg  leave  to 
acknowledge  receipt  of  the  consignment  of  leeches  as  per 
invoice,  but  regret  to  be  obliged  to  add  that  the  greater  part 
of  them  have  gone  to  glory.' 

In  many  Oriental  languages  there  would  be  no  incongruity 
in  such  a  mixture  of  styles ;  for  in  them  the  inflation  and 
artificiality  of  the  literary  language  often  goes  to  such  a  length 
that  all  sense  of  congruity  and  proportion  is  lost,  and  the  style 
is  valued  according  to  the  degree  of  its  departure  from  the 
plain  colloquial  style.  This  is  why  many  Hindoos  who  have 
a  perfect  knowledge  of  English  for  speaking  purposes,  become 
entirely  un-English  when  they  write  even  an  ordinary  letter, 
not  by  making  mistakes  in  grammar,  but  by  using  words  and 
idioms  in  unappropriate   surroundings.      A   Hindoo   clerk  in 


LITERATURE;    LITERARY   COMPOSITION     221 

whose  charge  a  pony  had  been  left  by  his  employer,  wrote  thus 
to  him  :  '  I  have  the  honour  to  report  that  the  little  horse,  since 
your  honour's  departure,  has  assumed  a  devil-may-care  attitude, 
and  has  become  violently  obstreperous.  This  morning,  at  6  a.m., 
the  said  little  horse  eloped  from  my  custody,  but,  with  the 
favour  of  heaven,  he  may  return.'  In  a  well-known  biography 
written  by  a  Hindu,  a  description  of  the  confusion  caused  in 
the  house  by  some  calamity  calls  forth  the  ejaculation,  '  Here 
was  a  pretty  kettle  of  fish  ! '  In  the  same  book  it  is  said  of 
the  hero  of  the  biography  that  '  in  his  youth  he  was  filamen- 
tous, but  he  afterwards  became  plump  as  a  partridge.' 

Next  to  the  imitation  of  unsuitable  models,  the  greatest  snare 
in  composition  in  a  foreign  language  is  originality  of  style.  We 
can  be  original  in  our  own  language  only,  although  even  there 
we  cannot  deviate  far  from  the  beaten  track  :  in  a  foreign 
language  we  must  adhere  rigidly  to  our  models.  This  is  why 
original  writers  are  seldom  good  linguists  :  they  know  instinc- 
tively that  their  own  language  is  the  only  instrument  of  thought 
they  can  hope  to  handle  freely,  and  so  they  have  no  induce- 
ment to  try  to  master  any  other.  However  wilful  the  deviations 
of  a  native  may  be  from  rule  and  tradition  in  his  attempts  to 
frame  new  expressions  for  new  ideas,  or  to  express  more 
forcibly  the  old  ones,  the  result  will  always  have  a  native 
flavour — it  may  be  uncouth  or  obscure  English  or  French,  but 
it  will  always  be  unmistakeably  English  or  French  as  the  case 
may  be.  But  if  we  try  to  be  original  in  a  foreign  language, 
there  is  always  a  danger  of  our  originality  assuming  a  native 
form.  The  result  will  be  a  language  which  is  incorrect  in 
grammatical  construction  or  in  phraseology,  not  merely  incon- 
grous,  as  in  the  examples  last  given — that  is  to  say,  it  will  use 
forms  which  are  not  only  non-existent,  but  which  no  native 
writer  could  possibly  have  evolved. 

A  foreigner's  style  may  of  course  have  a  quaint  and  apparently 
original  character  simply  through  being  tinged  with  reminiscences 
of  his  own  language,  not  through  any  originality  of  mind  in 
himself.  Dialectal  influences  may  have  the  same  effect.  Thus 
much  of  the  supposed  originality  of  Carlyle's  style  is  the  result 
of  the  influence  of  the  Scotch  dialect.  When  he  speaks  of 
newly  built  suburban  houses  as  '  the  human  dog-hutches  of  the 
period,'  an  English  reader  is  struck  by  the  picturesqueness  of 
the  word  '  dog-hutch,'  which  he  thinks  is  an  original  creation 


222     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

of  Carlyle's,  perhaps  the  result  of  his  supposed  imitation  of 
German;  but  this  picturesqueness  was  quite  unintentional  on 
Carlyle's  part,  being  simply  the  result  of  his  ignorance  of  the 
correct  expression  '  dog-kennel.'  It  is,  of  course,  often  difficult 
or  even  impossible  to  distinguish  these  two  factors.  The 
passage  already  quoted  from  Terrien  de  la  Couperie  (p.  72) 
is  a  specimen  of  the  style  into  which  a  foreigner  may  insensibly 
lapse  who  lets  himself  go  under  the  impression  that  he  has  a 
perfect  mastery  of  the  language. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

DEAD    LANGUAGES 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  the  study  of  dead  languages  should 
be  based  on  the  same  general  principles  as  that  of  living 
languages,  with,  of  course,  such  special  modifications  as 
experience  and  common-sense  show  to  be  advisable. 

It  must,  in  the  first  place,  be  realized  that  there  is  no  essential 
difference  in  structure  between  a  dead  and  a  living  language. 
The  dead  Latin  and  the  living  Italian  differ  widely  in  structure  ; 
but  this  is  not  because  all  dead  languages  are  inflectional,  all 
living  languages  analytical.  On  the  contrary,  we  need  not  look 
far  to  find  in  Russian  a  language  whose  inflections  are  quite  as 
complicated  as  those  of  Latin.  In  Hebrew,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  have  a  dead  language  of  comparatively  simple  structure,  the 
simplicity  being,  like  that  of  Italian,  mainly  the  result  of  phonetic 
change. 

External   Difficulties 

As  the  study  of  dead  languages  is  subject  to  various  external 
difficulties  of  its  own,  resulting  from  their  being  no  longer 
spoken  and  being  preserved  in  a  limited  number  of  texts  which 
are  sometimes  fragmentary  and  often  obscure,  it  is  even  more 
necessary  than  in  the  case  of  living  languages  to  remove  as 
many  of  the  other  external  difficulties  as  possible. 

Hence  texts  in  dead  languages  should  be  printed  with  all  the 
helps  that  transliteration,  quantity-  and  stress-marks  and  other 
phonetic  diacritics,  can  afford,  not  to  speak  of  punctuation, 
quotation-marks,  capital  letters  or  other  marks  to  indicate 
proper  names.  If  these  are  found  helpful  with  modern 
languages — if  we  do  not  like  to  dispense  with  them  even  in 
our  own  language — they  must   be  still   more   useful  in  such 

223 


224    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

languages  as  Sanskrit,  which,  as  it  is,  is  printed  not  only  with- 
out most  of  these  helps,  but  without  even  the  help  of  word- 
division  ! 

Normalizing 

Some  dead  languages  have  been  handed  down  to  us  in  a 
more  or  less  fixed  conventional  orthography  like  those  of  the 
modern  European  languages.  Other  languages  died  out  with- 
out ever  having  developed  a  fixed  orthography,  so  that  in  these 
languages  the  spelling  may  vary  not  only  from  generation  to 
generation,  but  also  from  manuscript  to  manuscript.  Old 
English,  Middle  English,  Old  French,  Old  Irish  afford  examples 
of  this  extreme,  while  Sanskrit  is  an  example  of  the  other.  In 
Sanskrit  the  orthography  is  so  absolutely  fixed  that  even  the 
archaic  language  of  the  sacred  hymns  of  the  Rig- Veda  is  written 
with  the  spelling  of  the  much  later  classical  Sanskrit,  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  this  later  spelling  often  does  violence  to  the  metre, 
as  when  the  Vedic  suria,  aria  are  written  su?ya,  arya. 

The  worst  of  these  fixed  traditional  orthographies  is  that 
they  are  generally  much  more  modern  than  the  language  they 
profess  to  represent,  so  that  they  may  be  really  quite  unauthori- 
tative. Thus  the  present  Sanskrit  devanagari  alphabet  and  its 
whole  system  of  orthography  was  not  evolved  till  long  after 
Sanskrit  had  ceased  to  be  a  living  language.  This  is  also  the 
case  with  the  orthographies  of  Greek  and  Latin,  which  are  full 
of  misleading  spellings,  the  result  of  mistakes  and  confusions 
of  comparatively  modern  times,  as  is  soon  seen  by  comparing 
the  traditional  spelling  with  that  of  the  few  texts — mostly 
inscriptions — preserved  in  contemporary  documents.  Such 
spellings  as  Virgilius  and  some  of  the  details  of  Greek 
accentuation  are  simply  modern  monstrosities. 

It  is  evident  that  an  unfixed  orthography  such  as  that  of 
Middle  English  and  the  Greek  dialectal  inscriptions,  which 
attempts — however  imperfectly — to  do  justice  to  the  peculiarities 
of  its  period  and  locality  without  regard  to  tradition,  is  far  more 
valuable  for  purposes  of  scientific  research  than  any  fixed 
orthography. 

It  must  not  be  imagined,  however,  that  the  chaotic  ortho- 
graphies of  such  languages  as  Middle  English  and  Old  French 
give  a  really  faithful  picture  of  the  languages  themselves  any 
more  than  the  fixed  orthographies  do ;  for  language  is  as  little 


DEAD    LANGUAGES  225 

lawless  on  the  one  hand  as  it  is  unchangeable  on  the  other. 
The  varying  spellings  of  one  and  the  same  word  in  the  unfixed 
orthographies  are  distortions  of  the  truth  just  as  much  as  the 
other  extreme  of  writing  all  the  words  in  a  certain  period  of 
the  language  just  as  they  were  written  several  centuries  before. 
The  value  of  these  variations — these  hesitating  attempts  to  do 
justice  to  imperfectly  understood  distinctions  of  sound — lies  in 
the  varied  evidence  they  afford  us  by  which  we  are  often  able 
to  determine  with  certainty  the  one  sound  or  grammatical  form 
which  lies  behind  them.  Thus  when  we  find  an  uneducated 
Englishman  sometimes  writing  father  for  farther  and  farther 
for  father,  and  sometimes  writing  the  correct  spellings,  we 
cannot  resist  the  conclusion  that  in  his  pronunciation  the  two 
words  have  the  same  sound  (faa-Ss).  The  various  early  Modern 
English  spellings  lif  lyf,  life,  lyfe,  lyffie,  etc.,  point  to  one  single 
form  just  as  much  as  the  Modern  English  life  does. 

Hence  a  normalized  orthography  gives,  as  a  whole,  a  truer 
representation  of  a  language  than  an  unfixed  orthography  does, 
although  the  latter  is  a  great  help  in  correcting  the  former. 
For  the  practical  study  of  languages  normalized  orthographies 
are  indispensable,  for  the  practical  learner  cannot  afford  to 
waste  his  time  and  labour  on  forming  conflicting  associations 
with  divergent  spellings  the  value  of  whose  evidence  he  is  not 
yet  able  to  appreciate.  It  matters  little  to  him  whether  or  not 
the  spelling  of  a  particular  word  that  is  adopted  in  his  normalized 
texts  is  the  best  one  or  not ;  even  if  there  are  downright  mis- 
takes in  the  normalized  spelling,  it  is  still  worth  his  while  to 
use  it,  if  it  materially  assists  his  mastery  of  the  language. 
When  he  has  once  learnt  the  language,  he  can  easily  correct 
any  errors  of  this  kind,  and  the  divergent  spellings  will  cause 
but  little  confusion.  If  he  is  studying  the  language  for  scientific 
philological  purposes,  or  if  he  intends  to  read  manuscripts  and 
original  documents,  it  will  be  necessary  for  him  to  make  a 
thorough  study  of  them.  Even  those  who  do  not  intend  to 
make  investigations  of  this  kind  will  still  derive  benefit  from 
such  a  study  because  of  the  training  it  affords  in  habits  of 
linguistic  observation. 

Pronunciation 

The  practical  exigencies  of  teaching  make  the  adoption  of 
some  system  or  other  of  pronunciation  a  necessity  in  dead  as 

Q 


226    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

well  as  living  languages ;  and  where  the  facts  of  pronunciation 
are  fairly  well  established,  it  is  often  just  as  easy  to  pronounce 
correctly  as  incorrectly.  Thus  in  Latin  it  is  just  as  easy  to 
pronounce  non,  Caesar  correctly  (noon,  kaisar)  as  in  the  English 
way  (non,  sijzs).  Even  if  we  make  the  vowel  of  non  into  the 
diphthong  (ou),  that  is  at  least  better  than  making  the  word 
rhyme  with  on.  So  also  if  we  distinguish  Greek  nomos  from 
nomos  by  treating  the  accent  as  a  mark  of  strong  stress,  we  do 
not  do  full  justice  to  what  was  probably  the  actual  distinction, 
but  we  certainly  get  as  near  to  it  as  is  practicable  from  our  point 
of  view,  while  at  the  same  time — and  this  is  the  really  important 
consideration — we  greatly  strengthen  our  hold  of  the  distinction 
between  the  two  words. 

Even  when  the  correct  pronunciation  offers  difficulties,  it  is 
generally  worth  while  to  make  some  efforts  to  overcome  them, 
without,  of  course,  allowing  this  to  take  too  much  time  from 
the  general  study  of  the  language.  For  they  may  be  diffi- 
culties which  will  confront  the  learner  in  some  modern  language. 
In  this  way,  pronouncing  a  dead  language  with  theoretical 
correctness  may  be  a  valuable  help  to  the  learning  of  living 
languages.  Thus  when  the  learner  has  once  mastered  the  diffi- 
culty of  pronouncing  double  consonants  in  Latin  in  such  words 
as  collo  compared  with  cold,  appellare — where  he  must  be  careful 
to  double  the  unstressed/  as  well  as  the  stressed  / — they  will 
cause  him  no  difficulty  in  Italian,  Swedish,  or  any  other  modern 
language.  So  also  the  English  learner  will  find  that  pronouncing 
such  a  word  as  Latin  non  with  a  pure  long  monophthongal  close 
(o)  will  greatly  improve  his  pronunciation  of  almost  every 
foreign  language,  living  or  dead. 

If  the  correct  pronunciation  cannot  be  ascertained,  or  if  its 
acquisition  takes  up  too  much  time,  the  learner  may,  for  the 
sake  of  distinctiveness,  adopt  a  schematic,  nomic  pronunciation 
(p.  34),  which  he  can,  of  course,  afterwards  modify  or  discard 
by  the  light  of  further  knowledge  without  any  practical 
difficulty. 

For  practical  purposes  it  is  specially  important  to  make 
distinctions  of  pronunciation  in  two  cases :  (1)  when  the 
distinctions  of  pronunciation  are  significant  (p.  5) ;  and  (2) 
when  they  affect  the  metre  of  the  verse.  Thus  in  Latin  it  is 
absolutely  necessary  from  both  points  of  view  to  pronounce  a 
real  double  (1)  in  collo,  for  cold  not  only  has  a  different  meaning, 
but  also  a  different  function  in  verse.     It  makes  no  difference, 


DEAD   LANGUAGES  227 

on  the  other  hand,  from  either  point  of  view  whether  we  pro- 
nounce Latin  v  as  (v)  or  (w).  In  pronouncing  Chaucer  we 
must  pronounce  the  weak  e  in  shoures  swote,  or  else  destroy  the 
metre,  so  that,  while  we  are  about  it,  we  may  as  well  restore 
his  genuine  pronunciation  throughout.  With  Shakespeare  there 
is  no  general  metrical  necessity  for  a  change,  so  there  is  no 
practical  inconvenience  in  reading  him  with  the  modern 
pronunciation. 

Teaching  through  the  Literature 

The  evil  effects  of  teaching  through  the  literature  are  even 
greater  in  dead  than  in  living  languages,  for  in  dead  languages 
every  natural  obscurity  is  increased  tenfold  by  our  unfamiliarity 
with  ancient  circumstances  and  trains  of  thought.  Such  a 
language  as  Latin  ought  to  be  taught  by  means  of  the  simplest 
possible  texts,  from  which  every  literary  complexity  or  excep- 
tional form  has  been  carefully  weeded.  Even  after  the  learner 
has  begun  the  study  of  the  literature  itself,  he  should  not  be 
allowed  to  look  at  such  authors  as  Virgil,  Tacitus,  or  Juvenal 
till  he  is  able  to  read  simple  prose  and  poetry  with  perfect 
ease. 

In  modern  languages  this  principle  amounts  practically  to 
beginning  with  the  spoken  language.  But  as  we  do  not  learn 
Latin  to  speak  it,  there  is  no  necessity  that  the  texts  should  be 
strictly  colloquial  in  character :  all  we  require  of  them  is  that 
they  should  imitate  the  simplicity,  definiteness,  and  directness 
of  the  colloquial  language — or,  at  least,  that  they  should  not 
be  unnecessarily  literary,  rhetorical,  and  artificial. 

As  these  requirements  are  rarely  to  be  found  in  the  actual 
literatures,  it  is  often  advisable  to  make  special  texts  for  our 
purpose  by  simplifying  and  abridging  or  paraphrasing  literary 
texts  suitable  in  matter  but  not  in  style  (p.  182). 

Cross-associations  with  Modern  Languages 

It  is  in  one  sense  incorrect  to  call  such  languages  as  Greek 
and  Latin  dead  languages,  for  Modern  Italian  and  Romaic  or 
Modern  Greek  are  simply  classical  Latin  and  classical  Greek 
which  by  gradual  and  perfectly  continuous  changes  have 
developed  into  their  present  form  without  any  change  of  place. 
We  do  not  call  Italian  '  Modern  Latin '  on  the  analogy  of 


228    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

Modern  Greek,  simply  because  we  find  it  more  convenient  to 
give  distinct  names  to  Italian,  French,  Spanish,  and  the  other 
dialects  of  modern  Latin.  The  fact  that  the  speakers  of 
Italian  and  Modern  Greek  are  probably  not  the  descendants 
of  those  who  spoke  the  ancient  forms  of  these  languages  does 
not  alter  the  fact  that  Latin  and  Italian,  for  instance,  differs 
only  in  degree,  not  in  kind,  just  as  the  Latin  of  Tacitus  differs 
from  that  of  Ennius.  The  only  languages  which  can  be  called 
really  dead  are  such  as  Accadian  and  Hebrew,  which  have 
left  no  direct  living  descendants. 

From  a  practical  point  of  view,  however,  we  are  fully 
justified  in  calling  such  a  language  as  Latin  a  dead  language, 
differing  essentially  from  a  living  language  (i)  in  being  no 
longer  accessible  to  direct  observation,  and  (2)  in  being  no 
longer  capable  of  producing  literary  works — in  having  a  limited 
and  definitely  completed  literary  development. 

But  from  this  point  of  view  the  earlier  stages  of  a  modern  lan- 
guage are  also  dead.  The  deadness  of  such  a  language  as  that 
of  Shakespeare  differs  only  in  degree  from  that  of  Latin.  The 
language  of  Shakespeare  is  no  more  accessible  to  direct  obser- 
vation than  that  of  Virgil.  In  fact,  as  regards  its  phonology, 
it  is  perhaps  even  less  so.  We  cannot  speak,  and  it  is  doubtful 
whether  any  of  us  can  write  Shakespearian  English.  And 
from  a  literary  point  of  view  the  Tudor  period  is  as  finished 
and  shut  off  from  the  present  period  as  any  ancient  literature. 
If  we  go  a  little  further  back,  no  one  will  deny  that  the  Middle 
English  of  Chaucer  and  the  Old  English  of  Alfred  are  dead 
languages.  Old  English,  indeed,  is  so  remote  from  Modern 
English  that  the  learner  is  often  inclined  to  regard  it  as  a 
dialect  of  German. 

The  divergence  between  these  periods  is  very  gradual. 
Shakespeare's  language  was  perceptibly  easier  to  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century  than  it  is  to  our  period,  and  although 
he  was  taken  less  seriously,  he  was  more  generally  read  in  the 
first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  than  at  any  subsequent 
period.  Chaucer,  again,  was  nearer  to  the  Tudor  period  than 
the  Tudor  period  is  to  us,  and  was  connected  by  insensible 
gradations  with  Old  English. 

Hence  there  is  a  danger  of  confusion  and  cross-association 
to  the  foreigner  who  attempts  a  historical  study  of  a  language. 
Even  a  native  is  not  exempt  from  this  danger.  The  difference 
is  that  while  the  foreigner  is   apt  to   import  Shakespearisjns 


DEAD   LANGUAGES  229 

into  his  Modern  English  conversation,  the  Englishman  is  more 
apt  to  misunderstand  Shakespeare  through  giving  Present 
English  meanings  to  his  words  and  phrases. 

This  suggests  two  cautions. 

The  first  is  :  Do  not  work  back  from  Modern  to  Old  English 
through  Middle  English  !  There  is  much  less  risk  of  confusion 
if  the  student,  after  mastering  Modern  English  thoroughly,  goes 
straight  to  the  other  extreme,  and  masters  Old  English  before 
making  himself  acquainted  with  the  intermediate  Middle  and 
Early  Modern  (Tudor)  periods.  So  also  the  student  of 
German  should  begin  his  historical  study  of  the  language  not 
with  Middle,  but  with  Old  High  German.  In  the  historical 
study  of  French  it  is  still  more  important  to  begin  with  the  real 
Old  French,  not  with  fifteenth-century  Parisian  texts  or  Anglo- 
Norman  ones. 

The  second  caution  is  :  Do  not  compare  the  different  periods 
more  than  you  can  help  !  All  the  comparisons  that  are  of  any 
use  will  suggest  themselves  spontaneously,  together  with  a  large 
number  of  misleading  ones,  which  unfortunately  will  be  con- 
firmed by  the  etymological  translations  in  the-  learner's  text- 
books. When  the  learner  first  meets  with  Old  English  sona, 
the  important  thing  is  not  to  tell  him  that  it  is  cognate  with 
Modern  English  soon,  but  that  it  does  not  mean  'soon,'  but 
'  forthwith,  immediately,'  just  as  presently  in  Edinburgh  English 
does  not  mean  '  after  an  interval,'  but  '  at  once.'  So  also 
Old  English  smcel  does  not  mean  '  small '  (which  is  expressed 
by  lytel),  but  '  narrow : '  Norway  is  a  smcel,  not  a  small 
country. 

Some  well-meaning  people,  misled  by  one-sided  antiquarian- 
ism  and  Freeman's  monomania  about  the  continuity  of  the 
English  language — the  only  philological  generalization  he  ever 
seems  to  have  grasped — are  incapable  of  seeing  these  self- 
evident  facts.  They  protest  that  '  we  must  not  isolate  Old 
English  from  Modern  English'  —  that  is  to  say,  that  it  is 
wrong  to  protect  ourselves  from  confusions  and  mistakes  by 
refraining  from  comparisons  which  encourage  the  formation 
of  cross-associations.  The  isolation  is  only  a  temporary 
one :  when  the  older  periods  have  once  been  learnt  separately, 
then  is  the  time  to  do  full  justice  to  the  fact  of  historical 
continuity. 


230    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

Dead  Methods  in  Modern  Languages 

There  is  another  fallacy  which  requires  a  brief  notice. 
There  is  a  certain  school  of  educationalists  who  have  a  strong 
conviction  of  the  great  value  of  the  study  of  Greek  and  Latin 
as  a  means  of  training  the  mind :  many  of  them,  indeed,  when 
reminded  of  the  fact  that  the  majority  of  those  who  learn  these 
languages  at  school  never  acquire  even  an  elementary  practical 
knowledge  of  them,  reply  that  this  really  does  not  matter 
much,  as  they  still  get  the  benefit  of  the  mental  training. 
Those  who  hold  these  views  also  urge  the  convenience  of 
the  study  of  dead  languages  which  is  the  result  of  not  having 
to  attend  to  pronunciation,  and  having  to  deal  only  with  a 
limited  literature  which  has  been  thoroughly  worked  up  for 
educational  purposes. 

Many  of  them  further  believe  that  the  present  methods  of 
teaching  modern  languages  have  the  contrary  effect  of  weaken- 
ing the  mind  and  making  it  more  superficial.  Some  of  them 
think  this  is  inherent  in  the  nature  of  modern  languages. 
Others,  more  liberal-minded,  think  that  the  fault  lies  in  the 
methods  of  instruction.  They  argue  that  if  modern  languages 
were  taught  like  dead  languages,  they  would  have  the  same 
beneficial  effect  on  the  mind. 

Hence  instead  of  assimilating  the  study  of  dead  to  that  of 
modern  languages,  we  are  advised  to  reverse  the  process. 
These  views  are  often  further  combined  with  antiquarian  and 
etymological  fallacies.  Thus  I  was  once  told  by  an  American 
pupil  of  the  late  Professor  Zupitza,  of  Berlin,  that  it  was  a 
mistake  to  suppose  that  Zupitza  was  not  interested  in  Modern 
English  literature;  that,  in  fact,  he  had  been  lecturing  on 
Shelley's  Prometheus  Unbotmd,  but  in  a  more  scientific  spirit 
than  a  purely  literary  specialist.  It  turned  out  that  this  superi- 
ority consisted  in  his  making  his  pupils  translate  the  beginning 
of  the  drama  into  Anglo-Saxon  so  as  duly  to  impress  on  them 
the  continuity  of  the  language  ! 

There  is  something  very  unreal  about  this  '  dead-alive ' 
philology.  Some — often  insignificant — modern  text  is  taken, 
and  elaborately  commented  upon  with  a  long  historical  and 
critical  introduction,  and  elaborate  notes  are  added  on  points 
of  grammar,  etymology,  style,  and  perhaps  metre,  the  editor 
not  being  conscious  of  the  absurdity  of  teaching  metre  without 
a  previous  knowledge  of  phonetics  on  the  part  of  the  students. 


DEAD   LANGUAGES  231 

The  text  is  hardly  ever  genuinely  colloquial,  and  is  often  anti- 
quated, so  that  the  method  practically  means  teaching  one 
language  by  means  of  another  language.  It  is  not  that  this 
kind  of  study  is  necessarily  objectionable  in  itself;  but  it  is 
not  the  thing  to  begin  with — it  should  come  at  the  very  end, 
not  at  the  beginning  of  the  course. 

The  reader  may  be  reminded  once  more  that  the  question 
whether  the  study  of  dead  or  of  modern  languages  affords  the 
best  training  for  the  mind  is  one  which  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  question,  which  is  the  best  way  of  learning  languages. 
The  only  question  we  have  to  deal  with  is  whether  the  exten- 
sion of  the  old  methods  of  studying  dead  languages  to  the 
study  of  living  languages  would  make  the  acquisition  of  the 
latter  easier.  Our  answer  to  this  question  must  be  an  un- 
hesitating negative. 


CHAPTER    XVIII 

ORIENTAL    LANGUAGES 

The  study  of  the  Oriental  and  of  the  other  remoter  languages 
has  many  analogies  with  that  of  dead  languages. 

In  the  first  place,  the  inaccessibility  of  these  languages,  and 
the  difficulty  of  obtaining  native  teachers,  generally  obliges  the 
beginner  to  approach  them  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  study 
of  dead  languages. 

Secondly,  in  these  languages  the  true  colloquial  element  is 
generally  even  more  inaccessible  than  in  European  languages, 
and  the  divergence  between  it  and  the  written  language  is 
nearly  always  much  greater  :  classical  and  vulgar  Arabic,  written 
and  spoken  Japanese,  are  distinct,  mutually  unintelligible  lan- 
guages, which  have  to  be  treated  in  separate  handbooks  and 
grammars.  Even  the  books  which  profess  to  deal  with  the 
colloquial  form  of  these  languages  often  give  only  an  approxi- 
mation to  the  true  colloquial.  Thus  Green's  Practical  Arabic 
Grammar,  which  '  was  originally  undertaken  to  meet  the  require- 
ments of  English  officers  in  Egypt,'  gives  a  language  which  is 
a  mixture  of  classical  with  modern  Egyptian  and  Syrian 
Arabic,  containing  forms  which  would  be  quite  unintelligible 
to  an  uneducated  Egyptian,  such  as  haza,  '  this'  (classical  hafta), 
the  learner's  confusion  being  further  increased  by  the  occasional 
insertion  of  texts  in  the  classical  form.  Yet  this  book —  which 
is  mainly  on  the  Ahn  plan  —has  lived  through  at  least  three 
editions  (third  edition  1893). 

Under  these  circumstances  the  learner  is  often  obliged  to 
master  a  dead  form  of  the  language  as  the  only  stepping-stone 
to  its  colloquial  form.  When  the  colloquial  language  is  split 
up  into  a  number  of  local  dialects  which  are  often  practically 
independent  languages,  the  unity  of  the  literary  language  is 
certainly  an  inducement  to  beginning  with  it ;  thus  classical  or 

232 


ORIENTAL   LANGUAGES  233 

literary  Arabic  is  the  only  link  by  which  the  different  c  vulgar ' 
Arabic  dialects  of  Syria,  Egypt,  Marocco,  etc.,  can  be  realized 
as  variations  of  one  language. 

But  when  we  have  really  practical  guides  to  the  genuinely 
colloquial  forms  of  each  living  dialect  or  language,  the  only 
rational  course  will  be  to  begin  with  one  definite  modern 
dialect,  and  then  work  back  to  the  literary  language.  To  learn 
classical  Arabic  as  a  preparation  for  modern  Egyptian  Arabic, 
or  written  as  a  preparation  for  spoken  Japanese,  would  then  be 
as  absurd  as  to  learn  Latin  as  a  preparation  for  the  practical 
study  of  modern  Italian. 

Adherence  to  Native  Methods 

One  of  the  greatest  external  hindrances  to  the  study  of 
Oriental  languages  is  the  adherence  to  the  native  methods 
of  exposition  and  the  native  terminology  in  each  language. 

It  is  evident  that  a  method  which  suits  an  Oriental  may  not 
suit  a  European.  Indeed,  we  may  go  a  step  further,  and  say 
that  a  method  which  suits  the  one  is  tolerably  certain  not  to 
suit  the  other.  To  the  Oriental  '  time  is  no  object,'  for  he  can 
give  his  life  to  his  one  object  of  study — the  literary  form  of  his 
own  language  —  which,  besides,  he  already  knows  to  some 
extent.  To  him,  writing  and  learning  grammar  merely  means 
writing  and  analyzing  something  that  he  is  already  partially 
familiar  with.  He  learns  to  read  his  own  crabbed  and  defective 
alphabet  with  comparative  ease,  not  only  because  he  has  plenty 
of  time  to  give  to  the  study,  but  also  because  the  solution  of 
each  orthographic  riddle  is  more  or  less  known  to  him  before- 
hand. For  the  same  reason  in  his  grammars  and  dictionaries 
he  can  find  his  way  through  an  abstract  and  complicated 
arrangement  which  baffles  the  foreign  learner,  to  whom  the 
matter  is  as  unfamiliar  as  the  form. 

The  difficulties  of  terminology  are  alone  a  serious  obstacle. 
Thus,  in  Arabic  the  unhappy  beginner  is  expected  from  the 
first  to  remember  the  three  short  vowels  by  their  Arabic  names 
fatha,  kasra,  damma,  and  has,  besides,  to  remember  a  number 
of  other  technical  terms  relating  to  orthography  and  pronun- 
ciation which  are  not  clearly  explained  to  him,  and  even  then 
are  difficult  to  understand  and  remember — and  all  this  in 
addition  to  having  to  learn  a  new  alphabet.  When  the  learner 
has  at  last  mastered  sixteen  or  more  pages  of  orthographic 


234    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

absurdities,  he  has  not  learnt  a  single  fact  about  the  language 
itself.  The  details  of  Hebrew  orthography — which  take  up 
nearly  twenty-two  pages  in  the  very  brief  grammar  of  Strack — 
are  even  more  repulsive  and  irritating  to  any  one  used  to  a 
rational  method  of  learning  languages. 

One  cannot  blame  the  scribes  who  evolved  these  preposterous 
orthographic  complexities  for  they  knew  no  better ;  although 
it  is  a  pity  that  when  the  Arabs  borrowed  their  system  of 
writing  from  a  Christian  people,  they  did  not  adopt  the  Coptic 
instead  of  the  Syriac  alphabet.  But  there  is  no  reason  why 
European  learners  should  be  hampered  with  them  just  at  the 
time  when  they  require  to  be  able  to  give  their  undivided 
attention  to  the  very  real  difficulties  that  encounter  them  in  the 
language  itself.  So  also  it  is  excusable  in  the  Chinese  that 
they  regard  the  addition  of  a  stopped  consonant  to  a  vowel  as 
a  kind  of  tone,  because  the  peculiar  character  of  their  writing 
made  it  possible  for  them  to  dispense  with  any  minute  analysis 
of  sounds ;  but  it  is  nevertheless  annoying  to  look  up  a  Chinese 
word  or  '  character '  in  a  dictionary,  and  then  to  be  told  merely 
that  it  has  the  '  entering '  tone  (jip  fir)),  or,  in  plain  English, 
that  it  ends  in  some  one  of  the  stopped  consonants  /,  k,  p  ;  the 
result  being  that  unless  we  know  how  the  word  is  pronounced 
in  those  modern  Chinese  dialects  which  still  keep  the  final  stops, 
and  are  able  to  check  their  often  conflicting  evidence  by  know- 
ing the  pronunciation  of  some  word  given  as  a  rhyme  to  our 
word,  we  are  left  in  an  unpleasant  state  of  uncertainty  as  to  its 
pronunciation. 

In  many  Oriental  languages  the  same  difficulties  of  unneces- 
sary technicality  and  confused  statements  follow  us  through 
the  grammar  and  dictionary.  Everywhere  a  new  terminology 
and  new  arrangements,  which  have  to  be  learnt  over  again  in 
each  language. 

Hence  even  Sanskrit,  which  in  itself  is  not  more  difficult 
than  Latin,  and  whose  alphabet  is  remarkably  rational  and 
phonetic  in  spite  of  its  complexity,  was  at  first  considered  un- 
attainable by  Europeans. 

Texts 

The  want  of  texts  suitable  for  beginners  is  as  keenly  felt  in 
Oriental  as  in  dead  languages.  There  are  few  of  them  that  can 
show  such  a  collection  of  comparatively  simple  and  colloquial 


ORIENTAL   LANGUAGES  235 

texts  as  those  contained  in  TJie  Thousand  and  One  Nights, 
which,  however,  have  the  disadvantage  of  being  neither  classical 
Arabic  on  the  one  hand  nor  fully  modern  on  the  other.  So  great 
is  the  dearth  of  simple  texts  in  Chinese  that  Summers,  in  the 
chrestomathy  to  his  Handbook  of  the  Chinese  Language,  actually 
includes  a  translation  into  Chinese  of  some  of  yEsop's  fables  by 
an  Englishman  !  In  fact,  almost  the  only  texts  that  are  even 
approximately  colloquial  in  Oriental  languages  are  those  which 
have  been  taken  down  from  dictation  by  European  scholars. 
Spitta's  Contes  arabes  modernes  are  an  excellent  specimen  of 
such  work,  although  unfortunately  they  are  written  down  so 
badly  from  a  phonetic  point  of  view  as  to  be  misleading  to 
those  who  have  not  an  independent  knowledge  of  Egyptian 
Arabic. 


CHAPTER   XIX 

GENERAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

Time  and  Effort 

In  learning  a  language  we  must  advance  steadily  at  a  certain 
speed — neither  too  fast  nor  too  slow. 

Hurried  reading  either  of  text  or  grammar  results  in  the 
learner  forgetting  half  of  what  he  reads,  or  in  his  forming  vague 
instead  of  definite  associations  with  what  he  does  remember. 
The  nearer  the  language  is  to  those  which  he  already  knows, 
the  greater  the  temptation  to  hurry.  Thus,  the  beginner  in 
Italian,  finding  that  when  he  has  once  learnt  to  recognize  a 
certain  number  of  disguised  particles  such  as  anche,  '  also,'  />ero, 
1  therefore,'  he  can  often  guess  at  the  general  meaning  of  whole 
paragraphs,  gets  into  the  habit  of  superficial  reading,  until  by  a 
succession  of  gross  blunders  he  is  obliged  to  confess  to  himself 
that  he  has  been  confusing  di,  '  of,'  with  da,  '  by,'  that  he  does 
not  know  one  pronoun  from  another,  and  so  on.  He  then  sees 
that  he  has  simply  thrown  away  so  many  months,  and  that  he 
must  either  give  up  Italian,  or  else  begin  again  at  the  beginning, 
and  go  through  the  tedious  drudgery  of  unlearning  false  associa- 
tions and  going  through  the  elements  of  the  language  again 
after  the  study  has  lost  the  charms  of  novelty. 

In  fact,  in  dealing  with  such  a  language  as  Italian,  it  requires 
a  determined  effort  on  the  part  of  the  learner  to  read  as  slowly 
and  carefully  as  he  ought.  Here  we  see  one  of  the  indirect 
uses  of  phonetics :  if  the  learner  tries  conscientiously  to  do 
justice  to  the  pronunciation— if  only  to  the  extent  of  dis- 
tinguishing the  close  and  open  vowels,  and  sounding  the  double 
consonants  distinctly— he  will  have  to  read  each  sentence  so 
often  that  there  will  be  no  fear  of  anything  in  it  escaping  his 
attention. 

236 


GENERAL  CONSIDERATIONS  237 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  language  is  remote  and  unfamiliar, 
there  is  no  temptation  to  quick  reading,  which  is,  indeed,  im- 
possible at  first.  Even  if  the  language  is  not  presented  to  the 
learner  in  an  unfamiliar  alphabet,  the  unfamiliarity  of  the 
vocabulary  will  enforce  a  slow  progress.  The  progress,  indeed, 
may  be  so  slow  that  the  learner  is  unable  to  keep  up  the  sense 
of  continuity  :  by  the  time  he  comes  to  another  example  of 
some  word  or  construction,  he  has  forgotten  the  former  one. 

Hence  most  Oriental  languages  cannot  be  learnt  by  merely 
reading  at  the  rate  of  an  hour  a  day  :  a  slow  learner  might  go 
on  at  this  rate  for  ten  years  without  making  any  real  progress. 
Such  languages  must  be  studied  intensively,  with  a  concentra- 
tion of  effort.  Thus  it  is  more  economical  in  the  end  to  give 
four  hours  a  day  for  a  year  to  such  a  language  than  to  spread 
the  same  number  of  hours  over  three  years.  Sir  Thomas  Wade 
used  to  tell  his  pupils  that  they  ought  to  give  eight  hours  a  day 
to  their  Chinese ;  but  this  was  addressed  to  those  who  were 
qualifying  themselves  to  serve  as  interpreters,  and  therefore  had 
to  learn  a  variety  of  subjects  which  would  be  superfluous  to  the 
purely  literary  or  philological  student.  His  method,  too,  was 
an  imperfect  one.  Under  any  circumstances  most  learners 
would  do  well  to  reduce  these  eight  hours  to  six  ;  for  when 
tired  brain  and  irritated  nerves  make  the  attention  flag,  the 
associations  necessarily  become  weaker,  and  the  discrimination 
of  minute  points  becomes  almost  impossible. 

If  the  student  is  perfectly  free,  and  his  sole  object  is  to  learn 
the  foreign  language  with  the  maximum  of  thoroughness  in  as 
short  a  time  as  possible,  he  must  work  at  it  continuously  every 
day  as  long  as  he  feels  that  he  is  getting  his  full  value  out  of 
his  time  and  labour.  How  many  hours  this  means  will  depend 
on  the  idiosyncrasies  of  the  learner — on  the  degree  of  his 
interest  and  enthusiasm,  the  strength  of  his  motive  in  learning, 
his  surroundings,  his  health,  and  lastly  on  his  intellectual  capa- 
bilities. At  first,  too,  his  progress  will  depend  much  on  his 
method  of  study,  and  on  the  character  of  his  helps.  Most 
learners  of  remote  languages  waste  many  years  through  using 
bad  methods  and  bad  books,  although  enthusiasm  and  per- 
severance will  always  triumph  in  the  end. 

If  the  time  given  to  the  study  of  a  language  is  to  be  utilized 
to  the  utmost,  a  certain  portion  of  it  will  be  set  aside  for 
repetition. 


238    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

The  thorough  student  whose  memory  is  not  exceptionally 
quick  should  always  read  over  again  every  day  what  he  read 
the  day  before.  After  a  month  or  so,  when  he  has  come  to  a 
convenient  halting-place,  he  should  then  go  over  everything 
again,  so  as  to  pick  up  those  threads  of  association  which  have 
been  dropped  through  the  slowness  of  his  progress.  He  should 
then  read  for  another  month,  and  then  revise  his  month's 
reading  in  the  same  way.  At  the  end  of,  say,  six  months,  he 
should  then  revise  the  whole. 

The  more  difficult  and  remote  the  language,  the  oftener  this 
process  should  be  repeated.  In  fact,  each  text  should  be  gone 
through  over  and  over  again  till  the  learner  feels  that  he  is 
getting  no  more  good  out  of  it — that  he  must  strengthen  and 
freshen  his  associations  with  the  words  in  it  by  meeting  them 
in  new  texts  and  in  different  contexts. 

Results ;    Stages  and  Degrees  of  Knowledge 

Perfect  Knowledge. — A  perfect  knowledge  of  a  living 
foreign  language  would  imply  the  power  of  conversing  on 
ordinary  topics  with  such  fluency  and  correctness  as  not  to  be 
taken  for  a  foreigner,  together  with  that  of  writing  a  letter 
correctly  on  any  familiar  subject,  and  of  course  being  able  to 
read  what  is  written  in  any  branch  of  general  literature.  To 
expect  more  than  this  would  almost  be  to  expect  the  foreigner 
to  know  the  language  better  than  an  educated  native :  by 
perfect  knowledge  from  a  practical  point  of  view  we  mean  a 
knowledge  which  puts  the  foreigner  on  a  level  with  the  average 
native  in  all  ordinary  affairs  of  life. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  this  ideal  is  seldom  attained 
purely  by  systematic  study.  Such  a  mastery  of  a  foreign 
language  is  generally  the  result  of  quite  exceptional  linguistic 
talent — aided,  however,  in  most  cases  by  some  kind  of  syste- 
matic grammatical  study — or  of  favourable  circumstances.  If 
the  circumstances  are  so  favourable  as  to  result  in  the  learner 
partially  or  wholly  forgetting  his  own  language,  the  victory 
cannot  be  said  to  be  a  fair  one. 

This  leads  us  to  the  question,  Is  it  possible  to  be  truly  and  per- 
fectly bilingual  ?  The  answer  is,  Yes,  it  is  just  barely  possible. 
But  generally  what  at  first  sight  seems  perfect  bilingualism  is 
not  really  perfect :  one  of  the  languages  has  to  suffer.     Even 


GENERAL  CONSIDERATIONS  239 

when  a  practically  perfect  command  of  two  such  languages  as 
French  and  English  is  kept  up  by  alternate  residence  in  the 
two  countries,  the  respective  speakers  of  the  two  languages  will 
generally  find  that  there  is  something  queer,  something  foreign 
in  the  pronunciation  of  one  of  the  two  languages — perhaps 
in  both  of  them.  Where  the  pronunciation  is  not  perfect, 
the  construction  may  be  theoretically  perfect,  but  is  seldom 
practically  so. 

When  bilingualism  is  the  result  of  living  on  a  linguistic 
border — as  that  between  England  and  Wales — the  children 
often  learn  to  speak  the  two  languages  with  apparently  equal 
ease.  But  then  the  languages  they  learn  are  themselves  already 
mixed.  The  children  on  the  Welsh  border  speak  neither  pure 
English  nor  pure  Welsh — they  speak  anglicized  Welsh  or 
celticized  English. 

When  our  methods  of  studying  languages  are  perfected,  it  is 
probable  that  perfect  bi-,  and  even  poly-lingualism  will  become 
more  common,  though  it  will  be  attainable  only  by  those  who 
have  special  gifts. 

Thorough  Knowledge. — The  ordinary  learner  can  aim 
only  at  what  is  called  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  foreign 
language.  A  thorough,  all-round  knowledge  implies  speaking 
with  moderate  fluency  and  sufficient  accuracy  of  pronunciation 
to  insure  intelligibility,  and,  of  course,  the  power  of  understand- 
ing the  natives,  and  sufficient  command  of  the  grammatical 
structure  of  the  language  to  avoid  grammatical  errors,  a  know- 
ledge of  the  necessary  idioms,  and  being  able  to  write  a  letter 
and  read  the  literature.  All  this  without  implying  the  being 
taken  for  a  native.  Even  this  degree  of  knowledge  is  not 
common  in  this  country,  and  where  it  exists,  is  generally  the 
result  of  infinite  expenditure  of  time  and  perseverance. 

Generally  this  thorough  knowledge  is  one-sided.  It  often 
applies  only  to  the  written  language,  a  sound  critical  knowledge 
of  which  is  often  accompanied  by  complete  inability  to  speak. 

Polyglot  or  '  parrot '  linguists  may  be  divided  into  two  main 
classes  :  (1)  those  who  can  speak  their  languages — or  the 
majority  of  them — fluently,  and  (2)  those  who  can  only  read 
them.  The  former  alone  fully  deserve  the  appellation  of  '  born 
linguists ; '  with  the  latter,  the  acquisition  of  many  languages  is 
rather  the  result  of  concentrated  patience  and  enthusiasm  aided 
by  a  good  memory  than  of  any  special  talent. 


240    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF   LANGUAGES 

Elementary  Knowledge. — A  sound  elementary  know- 
ledge implies  only  the  power  of  reading  at  sight  any  simple 
prose  text.  Thus,  if  the  learner  could  translate  a  page  of 
Grimm's  Mahrchen  which  he  had  not  seen  before  with  moderate 
accuracy  and  without  any  great  omissions,  we  might  say  that 
he  had  an  elementary  knowledge  of  German. 

This  knowledge  might  be  attained  in  about  six  months  of 
moderate  work — an  hour  a  day — by  an  English  adult  of 
average  linguistic  intelligence,  working  with  good  books  and 
with  a  good  method.  With  a  remoter  language,  offering,  how- 
ever, no  special  external  difficulties,  such  as  Modern  Arabic  in 
a  Roman  transliteration,  or  Finnish,  more  time  would  be 
required — perhaps  a  year.  With  external  difficulties,  such  as 
those  caused  by  the  Sanskrit  or  Arabic  alphabet,  the  time 
would  have  to  be  largely  increased :  three  years  would  be  a 
short  time  in  which  to  learn  to  read  simple  texts  in  Arabic 
or  Sanskrit  in  their  national  alphabets.  Chinese  or  cuneiform 
writing  would  require  still  longer  time,  both  as  regards  number 
of  years  and  number  of  hours  of  daily  work.  Many  learners 
would  require  a  teacher  to  reach  this  standard  of  progress, 
especially  in  the  remoter  languages ;  some,  however,  advance 
more  rapidly  by  themselves.  Some  may  take  twice  as  much 
time,  and  fail  after  all. 

Elementary  Theoretical  Knowledge.— Such  an  ele- 
mentary knowledge — modest  as  it  seems — is  more  than  sufficient 
for  the  purposes  of  theoretical  linguistics  and  comparative 
philology.  Every  one  who  begins  comparative  philology  is 
struck  first  by  the  limited  range  of  the  vocabulary  it  deals  with, 
and  secondly  by  the  fact  that  a  large  number  of  the  words 
quoted  do  not  occur  at  all  in  the  ordinary  literature  of  the 
language  :  half  the  Greek  words  seem  to  come  out  of  Hesychius 
and  Suidas,  half  the  Latin  words  out  of  Festus  and  Varro. 
In  short,  lecturing  on  comparative  Greek  grammar  does  not 
necessarily  imply  any  practical  knowledge  of  Greek :  it  is 
enough  to  have  a  general  knowledge  of  the  structure  of  Greek 
so  as  to  be  able  to  avoid  mistakes  in  quoting  the  few  hundred 
words  that  reappear  over  and  over  again  in  the  comparisons 
on  which  Aryan  comparative  philology  is  founded. 

Thus  we  arrive  at  a  still  lower  stage  of  knowledge,  which  we 
may  call  the  elementary  theoretical  knowledge  of  a  language. 
This  kind  of  knowledge  implies  only  the  power  of  translating 


GENERAL  CONSIDERATIONS  241 

certain  strictly  limited  texts  which  have  been  already  learnt, 
it  being  understood  that  the  texts  altogether  are  long  enough 
to  give  examples  of  the  main  features  of  the  structure  of  the 
language  in  its  simpler  form.  This  is  the  kind  of  knowledge 
that  would  be  acquired  by  going  through  my  Anglo-Saxon 
Primer;  that  is,  the  result  of  learning  about  fifty  pages  of  gram- 
mar, and  thirty-five  pages  of  texts.  A  remoter  language  would, 
of  course,  require  more  grammar  and,  perhaps,  more  texts. 

As  this  kind  of  study  necessarily  presupposes  a  rather  high 
standard  of  intellect  and  a  certain  enthusiasm  for  the  subject, 
it  need  not  require  more  than  a  month,  or  even  less,  according 
to  the  nearness  of  the  language.  With  a  remoter  language 
more  time  would  be  required,  and,  as  already  remarked,  longer 
primers.  In  Gabelentz'  Anfangsgriinde  der  chinesischen  Gra?n- 
matik  the  grammar  of  the  classical  language  takes  up  eighty-four 
pages,  thirteen  of  which,  however,  are  given  to  the  explanation 
of  the  system  of  writing,  the  bulk  of  the  grammar  being  also 
increased  by  everything  being  given  twice  over,  in  the  Chinese 
character  and  in  transcription.  The  classical  Chinese  texts 
at  the  end,  which  are  accompanied  by  transcriptions  and 
translations,  take  up  only  thirteen  pages. 

General  Stages  of  Knowledge. — In  all  practical  study 
of  languages  there  are  two  main  stages,  one  in  which  everything 
is  strange  to  us — in  which  we  feel  uncomfortable  and  not  at 
home — the  second,  in  which  the  main  features  of  the  language 
are  familiar,  and  we  begin  to  know  what  to  expect,  and  feel 
instinctively  whatever  is  contrary  to  the  genius  of  the  language. 

These  two  stages  occur  in  every  branch  of  the  study.  Thus 
in  learning  the  peculiar  word-intonation  of  such  a  language  as 
Swedish,  our  own  imitation  of  it  sounds  at  first  strange  and 
affected,  and  we  feel  as  if  we  were  making  ourselves  objects  of 
ridicule,  however  correct  our  imitation  may  be ;  but  after  a 
time  we  have  the  exactly  opposite  feeling  :  we  feel  that  our 
own  intonation  is  more  or  less  in  harmony  with  that  of  the 
natives,  and  when  we  hear  our  own  countrymen  speaking  the 
language  with  English  intonation,  it  sounds  as  strange  to  us  as 
to  the  natives.  This  is  a  proof  that  we  have  learnt  to  appreciate 
the  native  intonation  with  our  ears  at  any  rate. 

So  also  when  the  particles  of  Old  Greek  or  classical  Chinese 
seem  useless  encumbrances  to  the  learner,  he  ought  to  acknow- 
ledge that  this  is  a  proof  of  his  not  having  a  real  knowledge  of 

R 


242     THE  PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

these  languages  ;  when  the  absence  or  misuse  of  one  of  the 
particles  jars  on  his  linguistic  sense,  then  he  may  boast  that  he 
has  really  begun  to  '  live  himself  into  the  language.' 

Epitomes  and   Note-books 

In  the  case  of  languages  and  dialects  which  have  hitherto 
been  little  studied,  there  may  be  a  want  of  the  necessary  helps, 
so  that  the  student  may  have  to  make  part,  at  least,  of  the 
grammar  for  himself,  and  may  have  to  make  his  own  dictionary 
as  he  goes  along.  But  this  is  an  extreme  case.  And  such 
independent  work  is  neither  an  essential  element  of  any  practical 
method  of  learning  languages  nor  even  a  supplement  to  it :  it 
is  simply  filling  up  a  gap  in  the  materials  on  which  the  method 
is  founded. 

Even  when  there  is  a  complete  grammar,  it  may  be  advisable 
for  the  learner  to  make  a  special  abstract  of  it  for  his  own  use. 
But  this,  again,  is  merely  filling  up  a  gap  in  the  materials ;  for  such 
an  abstract  ought  to  have  been  already  provided  for  the  use  of 
other  learners  as  well ;  and  if  we  accept  the  principle  of  one 
method  for  all,  there  can  be  no  particular  object  in  each  learner 
making  a  special  epitome  of  grammar  for  his  own  use.  Indeed, 
we  may  ask,  How  can  a  beginner  know  with  certainty  before- 
hand what  parts  of  the  grammar  he  will  require  ?  Of  course, 
if  his  grammar  is  manifestly  unpractical  and  impossible  to  work 
with,  then  he  must  do  his  best ;  but  it  is  much  better  for  him 
to  have  it  done  for  him  by  some  one  who  knows  the  language. 

So  also  the  use  of  note-books,  in  which  the  learner  writes  out 
the  words  as  they  occur  in  his  texts  with  particulars  of  meaning, 
inflection,  gender,  or  construction,  may  be  regarded  as  supply- 
ing a  defect  in  the  text-book — as  supplying  the  want  of  notes 
such  as  those  in  my  First  Steps  in  Anglo-Saxon. 

But  it  may  also  be  regarded  simply  as  a  means  of  strengthen- 
ing the  learner's  associations.  Thus  the  learner  looks  up  the 
German  word  haus  in  his  glossary,  and  finds  that  it  is  a  neuter 
noun  with  plural  hauser,  so  in  order  to  fix  this  knowledge  more 
firmly  in  his  memory,  he  enters  in  his  note-book  das  hazis  neut. 
1  house]  plur.  hauser,  or  something  of  the  kind. 

The  great  danger  of  this  method  is  that  it  tends  to  distract 
the  learner's  attention  from  the  texts  to  the  isolated  word. 
Instead  of  thinking  of  the  word  in  connection  with  its  natural 


GENERAL   CONSIDERATIONS  243 

'  context,  the  learner  gets  into  the  habit  of  thinking  of  it  as  an 
isolated  abstraction — he  sees  it  as  a  mental  picture  of  the  entry 
in  his  note-book.  This  does  not  matter  so  much  with  concrete 
words  of  definite  and  simple  meaning,  but  when  it  comes  to 
entering  abstract  words  which  have  hardly  any  palpable  or 
definable  meaning  apart  from  their  context,  it  becomes  a  pure 
waste  of  time.  Even  in  the  case  of  a  word  which  can  be  easily 
isolated  in  thought,  it  is  much  better  for  the  learner  to  read  on 
till  he  finds  such  a  word  as  haiis  associated  with  the  neuter 
article,  and  then  to  repeat  the  whole  context  till  it  is  fixed  in 
his  mind,  and  then  to  read  on  till  he  comes  to  the  plural  Muser, 
and  make  himself  realize  in  like  manner  the  meaning  of  the 
form  by  association  with  its  context.  If  he  meets  the  plural 
before  the  singular,  it  does  not  matter  much  :  he  will  not  have 
to  wait  long  for  the  singular. 

It  is  much  worse  when  the  learner  enters  in  his  note-book 
further  particulars  about  the  etymology  and  history  of  the  word, 
giving,  perhaps,  the  cognate  forms  of  a  German  or  Old-English 
word  in  Gothic  and  Icelandic,  with  an  occasional  Sanskrit 
root.  This  is  mere  madness  from  a  practical  point  of  view. 
It  is  the  very  antipodes  of  the  principle  of  making  the  texts  the 
centre  of  study. 

The  Subject-matter  of  the  Texts 

We  often  hear  and  read  complaints  about  text-editions  that  the 
treatment  is  too  exclusively  grammatical,  linguistic,  philological ; 
that  the  subject-matter — the  realien — is  not  commented  upon, 
that  the  social  life  of  the  speakers  of  the  language  is  not 
described,  that  no  attempts  are  made  to  rouse  the  learner's 
interest  in  the  literary  merits  of  the  texts  or  their  historical 
value,  and  so  on. 

It  is  certainly  desirable  that  the  learner  should  understand 
the  subject-matter  of  what  he  is  reading.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  equally  desirable  that  the  texts  put  before  the 
beginner  should  deal  as  far  as  possible  only  with  topics  with 
which  he  is  already  familiar.  If  they  must  deal  with  subjects 
that  are  unfamiliar  to  the  learner,  they  ought  themselves  to  give 
the  required  definition  or  explanation,  not  of  course  directly, 
but  indirectly,  through  the  context.  Any  further  information 
about  the  subject-matter  in  the  earlier  stages  is  therefore 
superfluous. 


244    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

In  fact,  the  question  can  hardly  be  said  to  arise  at  all  till  we 
come  to  the  study  of  the  literature  itself.  Even  here,  the 
explanations  of  and  comments  on  the  subject-matter  should 
be  limited  to  what  is  absolutely  necessary  for  making  the 
meanings  of  the  words  clear — that  is,  to  what  is  really  useful 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  practical  study  of  languages. 
Any  further  elaboration  of  comment  and  illustration  is  irrelevant 
from  our  point  of  view.  If  the  learner  in  the  course  of  his 
linguistic  reading  comes  on  an  allusion  to  Manichseism,  or  feels 
a  great  curiosity  as  to  whether  Shakespeare  was  really  a  Free- 
mason, or  what  Milton's  diet  was,  there  is  no  harm  in  his 
looking  these  subjects  up  in  a  cyclopedia  or  biographical 
dictionary,  but  this  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  question  what  is 
the  best  way  of  learning  languages. 

Even  a  sketch  of  the  history  and  literature  of  the  language 
has  nothing  to  do  with  this  question,  although,  of  course,  not 
even  the  most  narrow-minded  linguist  would  quarrel  with  his 
teacher  for  giving  him  this  information. 

Teaching  Children 

The  most  important  difference  in  the  classes  of  learners  of 
languages  is  that  which  depends  on  age.  Within  childhood 
itself,  again,  there  are  different  stages. 

The  different  subjects  which  make  up  a  child's  education 
must  be  begun  at  different  ages,  partly  because  there  is  not 
time  to  carry  them  on  all  abreast,  and  partly  because  of  the 
natural  gradation  and  dependence  of  the  different  branches  one 
on  another.  It  is  of  the  greatest  importance  that  the  succession 
of  studies  should  correspond  with — or,  at  least,  not  go  directly 
against— the  progressive  development  of  the  child's  mind. 
These  considerations,  combined  with  the  conclusions  we  have 
already  arrived  at  as  to  the  right  method  of  learning  languages, 
point  to  the  following  order  in  a  child's  study  of  languages  : — 

The  foundation  of  all  study  of  language  must  be  laid  by  that 
of  the  native  language.  Correct  and  clear  pronunciation  of 
it  should  be  insisted  upon  from  the  beginning.  The  reading- 
lessons  should  be  made  the  centre  of  instruction  as  soon  as 
possible.  The  first  elements  of  phonetics  and  of  grammatical 
analysis  should  be  deduced  from  them.  Great  attention  should 
be  paid  to  word-meanings.  There  is  no  reason  why  children 
should  not  be  taught  almost  from  the  beginning  of  their  reading 


GENERAL   CONSIDERATIONS  245 

to  group  the  words  they  meet  with  into  logical  as  well  as 
grammatical  categories — of  course,  with  as  little  terminology 
and  abstract  definition  as  possible. 

The  same  principles  apply  also — with  some  necessary 
modifications — even  to  the  pre-reading  stages  of  education. 
Phonetics,  of  course,  should  be  begun  in  the  nursery.  The 
time  will  come  when  ignorance  of  practical  phonetics  will  be 
held  to  disqualify  a  nurse  as  much  as  any  other  form  of 
incapacity.  If  the  infant's  attempts  to  speak  were  guided  into 
the  channel  of  systematic  all-round  phonetic  drill,  it  would  on 
entering  into  school-life  be  already  a  thorough  practical 
phonetician :  all  it  would  have  to  learn  would  be  the  use  of  a 
phonetic  notation.  The  pronunciation  of  foreign  languages 
would  then  offer  no  initial  difficulties  whatever  :  it  would  simply 
be  a  question  of  remembering  what  particular  sounds  occurred 
in  the  foreign  language,  and  associating  them  with  the  symbols 
of  the  phonetic  alphabet  for  that  language. 

The  reading-books  in  the  native  language  should  at  first  be 
mainly  in  simple  prose,  with  only  occasional  pieces  of  simple 
poetry.  They  would,  of  course,  be  entirely  in  phonetic  spelling 
on  a  Broad  Romic  basis,  and  with  accurate  marking  of  stress 
and  intonation. 

The  further  development  of  the  study  of  the  native  language 
would  consist  in  widening  the  vocabulary,  and  providing  reading 
of  a  higher  character,  and  at  the  same  time  making  the  linguistic 
analysis — both  grammatical  and  psychological — more  conscious 
and  more  abstract,  and  framing  it  more  and  more  into  definite 
rules. 

The  next  great  step  will  be  that  of  emerging  from  the  mono- 
lingual into  the  bilingual  condition.  The  first  foreign  language 
must,  of  course,  be  one  which  admits  of  being  grasped  concretely 
in  all  the  details  required;  that  is,  it  must  be  a  living,  not  a 
dead  language.  French  seems  to  satisfy  our  requirements  best 
on  the  whole.  It  might  be  begun  at  ten.  After  two  years, 
German  may  be  begun — at  twelve. 

The  only  dead  languages  that  children  ought  to  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  are  the  earlier  stages  of  their  own  language. 
For  reasons  already  stated  (p.  229),  I  think  English  children 
ought  to  begin  with  Old  English.  German  and  Old  English 
will  afford  mutual  help.  On  the  whole,  it  would  be  best  to 
postpone  beginning  Old  English  till  the  elements  of  German 


246    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

are  fixed  in  the  memory — that  is,  till  the  age  of  fourteen.  It 
is  not  necessary  that  much  should  be  read  of  Old  English 
literature.  After  a  year  of  Old  English,  the  learner  may  go 
on  to  Chaucer,  and  then  work  his  way  rapidly  down  to  Tudor 
English. 

If  Latin  is  to  be  studied  at  all  at  school,  it  ought  not  under 
any  circumstances  to  be  begun  before  the  age  of  sixteen. 
Greek  should  be  put  on  a  level  with  Hebrew,  Arabic,  Russian, 
Chinese,  and  other  languages,  which,  in  spite  of  their  great 
intrinsic  interest  and  the  importance  of  the  literature  they 
embody,  have  no  necessary  direct  connection  with  modern 
European  culture ;  in  other  words,  Greek  should  be  regarded 
as  a  linguistic  specialism  to  be  entered  upon,  if  at  all,  at  the 
University.  As  regards  literary  culture,  the  schoolboy  who 
has  learnt  something  of  the  classics  of  English,  French,  and 
German  literature  will  have  as  much  of  that  kind  of  culture  as 
is  good  for  him — perhaps  too  much. 

These  are  the  main  features  of  a  linguistic  course  for 
children.  To  show  a  different  scheme — though  founded  on 
similar  principles — I  quote  the  following  passage  from  Widgery's 
Teaching  of  Languages  in  Schools  (p.  10),  as  embodying  the 
opinions  of  a  liberal-minded  and  progressive  practical  school- 
teacher who  was  at  the  same  time  well  versed  in  the  literature 
of  his  subject : — 

1  With  regard  to  the  study  of  English,  I  venture  to  propose 
the  following : 

'  Increase  the  reading-lessons  in  it ;  let  them  be  mainly  in 
modern  prose.  Teach  the  very  first  elements  of  phonetics  and 
grammar  purely  inductively;  pay  special  attention  to  the 
vocabulary,  grouping  the  words  which  children  meet  in  their 
reader  under  psychologic  and  grammatical  categories.  At  ten, 
or  earlier,  begin  to  work  backwards,  say  to  the  age  of  Anne. 
With  Shakespeare,  their  attention  should  be  directed  to  his 
variations  from  modern  usage,  and  the  beginnings  of  a  sense  of 
the  development  of  language  made.  At  eleven,  we  might  start 
French,  reading  at  the  same  time  a  little  Chaucer.  Between 
twelve  and  thirteen,  we  might  just  touch  Old  English  by  means 
of  a  short  Reader  with  the  text  on  one  side,  and  the  necessary 
grammar  on  the  other;  some  slight  knowledge  of  the  laws  of 
language  should  be  introduced,  analogy  and  the  regular  changes 
of  sound  at  least  being  fully  illustrated.     The  child  of  twelve 


GENERAL   CONSIDERATIONS  247 

and  a  half  is  now  fit  to  begin  German.  After  a  year's  study, 
bifurcation  must  come  in ;  the  future  classical  student  could 
begin  Latin  at  fourteen  and  gradually  drop  French,  begin 
Greek  at  sixteen  and  devote  his  time  to  the  classics.  The 
student  of  the  modern  languages  could  now  begin  a  scientific 
study  of  his  three,  keeping  English  always  in  the  centre.' 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  main  point  on  which  I  differ  from 
Widgery  is  that  I  would  rather  begin  the  study  of  the  older 
stages  of  English  at  once  with  Old  English  itself,  while  he 
prefers  to  work  gradually  backwards.  I  should  advocate  great 
caution  in  introducing  children  to  classics  such  as  Milton,  for 
which  their  minds  are  hardly  matured  enough.  As  already 
remarked,  I  think  Greek — and  perhaps  Latin  too — ought  to  be 
excluded  altogether  from  schools.  This  would  obviate  the 
ridiculous  bifurcation  into  a  classical  and  a  commercial  side. 
The  phrase  '  classical  education '  has  no  longer  any  meaning ; 
learning  Greek  and  Latin  is  neither  education  nor  a  preparation 
for  it.  The  future  man  of  science  or  scholarship  wants  modern 
languages  as  much  as  the  future  merchant.  What  remote  or 
dead  languages  he  or  the  practical  man  may  require  will  depend 
entirely  on  the  details  of  their  pursuits.  I  would  also  keep  all 
scientific,  theoretical,  historical  study  of  languages  in  schools 
within  very  narrow  limits,  and  draw  the  materials  for  it  ex- 
clusively from  the  native  language  and  from  French  and 
German. 

Methods  for  Adults ;  Self-instruction 

The  methods  of  linguistic  study  by  adults  are  more  varied 
than  with  children,  for  the  aims  and  conditions  of  study  are 
more  varied.  The  adult  can  specialize,  and  he  can  devote  the 
whole  of  his  time  to  one  language,  thus  making  up  by  intensive- 
ness  of  study  for  what  he  has  lost  in  quickness  and  adaptability 
of  mind. 

With  a  Native  Teacher. — Another  important  factor  is 
that  the  adult  can  be  self-taught.  Even  if  he  has  a  foreign 
teacher,  he  may  still  be  self-taught.  In  fact,  he  must  be  so, 
unless  his  teacher  is  a  skilled  phonetician  with  a  good  method. 
This,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  is  rarely  the  case.  So  that  the 
teacher  is  simply  a  more  or  less  passive  object  of  observation 
and  experiment  to  the  learner,  provided,  of  course,  that  the 
latter  has  had  the  necessary  phonetic  and  linguistic  training. 


248    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

If  the  teacher  is  naturally  intelligent,  the  learner  will  find  it 
worth  his  while  to  try  to  interest  him  in  the  improved  phonetic 
methods.  If  he  succeeds,  the  gain  on  both  sides  will  fully 
repay  the  time  and  trouble  spent  on  it. 

If  the  teacher  is  prejudiced  against  phonetics,  and  persistently 
withholds  information  about  the  natural  colloquial  pronunciation 
and  idioms,  the  only  method  is,  not  to  let  him  see  the  printed 
page,  but  to  get  the  information  required  entirely  by  putting 
such  questions  as  '  what  do  you  say  when  you  meet  people — 
when  you  go  away — when  you  do  not  understand  what  is  said 
to  you — when  you  want  some  one  to  pass  the  salt  ? '  and  so  on, 
and  writing  down  the  answers  phonetically.  But  as  this  is 
difficult  and  slow  work,  especially  at  the  beginning,  it  is  often 
better  to  get  a  dialogue-  or  phrase-book,  and  look  through  it 
beforehand,  so  as  to  get  what  information  one  can  from  the 
nomic  spelling,  and  then  read  over  the  English  translation  to 
the  native,  without  letting  him  see  the  book,  and  ask  him  how 
he  would  say  that  in  his  own  language  ;  in  this  way  the  danger 
of  his  simply  reading  aloud  the  perhaps  incorrect  colloquialisms 
of  the  book  in  an  artificially  distinct  pronunciation  will  be 
averted,  and  if  he  gives  the  same  idioms  as  the  book,  the  nomic 
spelling  of  the  latter  will  be  sure  to  give  some  help  in  dis- 
tinguishing the  sounds. 

If  the  learner  finds  he  cannot  get  clear  ideas  of  the  sounds 
by  hearing  them  in  connected  sentences,  he  should  draw  up 
tentative  lists  of  words  containing  the  elementary  sounds — as 
far  as  he  can  ascertain  them  from  his  grammar  and  pronouncing 
dictionary  and  other  helps — in  combinations  which  present  the 
least  difficulty  to  him.  These  words  must  be  practised  diligently 
by  first  listening  to  the  teacher's  pronunciation  while  he  repeats 
each  word  at  least  three  times,  and  then  trying  to  imitate. 
When  each  word  has  been  gone  over  in  this  way,  the  teacher 
should  read  the  whole  list  over  several  times.  At  first  the 
learner  should  confine  himself  mainly  to  careful  listening,  till 
the  sounds  are  definitely  fixed  in  his  ear,  so  that  even  if  he  is 
unable  to  pronounce  a  certain  sound  during  the  lesson,  he  is 
often  able  to  reproduce  it  successfully  when  he  practises  it  by 
himself. 

As  regards  phonetic  notation,  it  is  often  most  convenient  at 
first  to  improvise  a  system  of  diacritic  marks — dots,  circles, 
etc.,  over  and  below  the  letters — not  attempting  to  form  a  com- 
plete system  of  transliteration  till  the  sounds  are  better  known. 


GENERAL   CONSIDERATIONS  249 

At  first,  while  the  student  is  still  unfamiliar  with  the  grammar, 
he  will  be  able  to  read  only  a  very  short  piece — less  than  ten 
lines — every  day,  the  pronunciation  of  which  can  therefore  be 
studied  with  some  care.  Each  day's  portion  should  be  read 
over  by  the  teacher  and  then  by  the  learner,  first  in  very  short 
groups  of  words  ;  as  soon  as  enough  of  these  groups  have  been 
read  to  make  up  a  complete  sentence,  the  whole  sentence 
should  be  repeated,  and  similarly  with  the  paragraph.  The 
preceding  day's  reading  should  be  repeated  every  day  before 
going  further. 

The  learner  who  has  not  had  a  phonetic  training  should 
often  exercise  himself  in  repeating  short  sentences  after  the 
teacher  without  looking  at  the  book.  This  will  train  his  ear, 
and  make  him  less  liable  to  be  misled  by  unphonetic  spelling. 

Start  with  Definite  Knowledge ;  with  a  Translation. 
— In  self-study,  without  any  help  from  a  teacher,  the  first 
requisite  is  to  start  with  a  definite  and  exact  knowledge  of 
every  sentence  in  the  texts.  This  should  always  be  aimed  at 
under  all  circumstances ;  but  it  is  doubly  important  when  the 
learner  has  to  depend  on  his  own  vigilance  in  detecting  any 
mistakes  he  may  have  fallen  into.  It  is  a  fallacy  to  regard  the 
texts  as  puzzles  to  be  solved  by  the  help  of  grammars  and 
dictionaries,  thereby  forming  vague  and  often  false  associations 
which  have  to  be  modified  or  unlearnt.  The  beginner  should 
from  the  first  provide  himself  with  a  fairly  literal  translation, 
unless,  of  course,  he  is  working  with  such  a  book  as  my  First 
Steps  in  Ajiglo-Saxon,  where  everything  is  explained  without  a 
continuous  translation.  At  the  beginning  he  should  make  a 
point  of  reading  each  sentence  in  the  translation  before  he 
begins  to  read  and  analyze  the  corresponding  passage  in  the 
original. 

The  dictionary  should  be  referred  to  only  when  the  informa- 
tion so  gained  is  indispensable,  or  at  least  instructive,  as  in 
determining  the  nominative  case  of  a  noun,  the  infinitive  of  an 
irregular  verb,  or  the  original  meaning  of  a  word  used  figura- 
tively in  some  special  construction.  Of  course,  as  soon  as  the 
translation  has  made  the  sense  of  the  passage  clear,  it  should 
be  put  aside,  and  every  word  and  construction  should  be  care- 
fully analyzed,  as  far  as  the  student's  knowledge  will  allow. 
When  some  progress  has  been  made,  the  student  should  occa- 
sionally practise  himself  in  making  out  the  sense  of  a  passage 


250    THE  PRACTICAL   STUDY    OF  LANGUAGES 

with  the  help  of  grammar  and  dictionary  only ;  but  this  must 
be  regarded  as  a  test  of  knowledge  and  a  stimulus,  not  as  a 
method  of  study. 

The  current  prejudice  against  the  use  of  translations  is 
founded  on  the  erroneous  assumption  that  the  learner  requires 
to  be  trained  in  guessing  and  unravelling  the  meaning  of 
sentences,  just  as  any  one  who  is  learning  to  shoot  has  to  make 
many  unsuccessful  attempts  before  he  learns  to  hit  the  mark 
with  any  certainty.  It  is  assumed  that  a  learner  who  has  not 
been  set  to  guess  at  the  meaning  of  sentences  will  never  acquire 
the  power  of  reading  without  a  translation.  But  there  is  an 
essential  difference  between  reading  and  shooting.  While  the 
art  of  shooting  can  be  acquired  only  by  a  series  of  unsuccessful 
efforts,  a  knowledge  of  the  meaning  of  sentences  can  be  obtained 
without  guessing,  that  is,  by  the  use  of  a  translation.  Not  till 
this  knowledge  is  obtained,  is  it  possible  to  analyze  intelligently. 
The  objection  to  schoolboys  using  '  cribs'  is  a  purely  practical 
one,  namely,  that  they  are  apt  to  learn  the  crib  by  heart  instead 
of  comparing  it  with  the  original,  while  the  exclusive  use  of  a 
dictionary  forces  them  both  to  study  the  texts  themselves,  and 
to  do  a  certain  amount  of  grammatical  analysis.  It  need  hardly 
be  said  that  an  intelligent  teacher  will  have  no  difficulty  in 
testing  the  soundness  of  their  analysis,  whether  they  have  used 
a  translation  or  not.  It  is,  of  course,  most  satisfactory  if  the 
boys  can  be  taught  without  either  a  dictionary  or  a  trans- 
lation, the  latter  being  the  special  resort  of  the  self-taught 
adult. 

Pronunciation. — The  learner  should  start  with  a  definite 
pronunciation,  which  may,  however,  be  only  a  nomic  pro- 
nunciation (p.  34).  He  should,  if  possible,  read  everything 
aloud,  and  get  into  the  habit  of  listening  to  and  criticizing  his 
own  utterance  as  if  it  were  that  of  a  stranger. 

The  Grammar. — Of  those  principles  which  are  of  general 
application,  many  are  especially  important  to  the  self-taught 
learner,  such  as  that  of  beginning  with  a  general  survey  of  the 
language,  so  as  to  know  beforehand  where  the  difficulties  lie, 
and  the  degree  of  attention  to  be  given  to  each  group  of 
linguistic  phenomena.  Another  important  general  principle  is 
that  of  beginning  with  a  short  grammar. 

But   every   short   grammar  is    not    suited    for    self-taught 


GENERAL   CONSIDERATIONS  251 

beginners.  As  I  have  remarked  in  the  preface  to  my  Anglo- 
Saxon  Reader,  many  of  the  elementary  grammars  and  other 
text-books  published  abroad  '  are  intended  as  companions  to 
the  author's  lectures,  so  that  he  naturally  does  not  care  to  put 
his  book  into  such  a  form  as  will  make  his  lectures  superfluous ; 
hence  such  books  are  generally  not  suited  for  self-instruction.' 
To  this  I  may  add  that  even  when  they  profess  to  be  fitted  for 
purposes  of  self-instruction,  they  are  often  not  so,  through  the 
author  being  unconsciously  under  the  influence  of  the  traditional 
methods. 

In  going  through  his  grammar  for  the  first  time,  the  student 
should  without  hesitation  cut  out  all  superfluities  :  he  should 
draw  his  pen  through  all  comparisons  with  cognate  languages, 
all  archaisms  in  the  paradigms  or  lists.  Even  when  he  is 
entirely  unacquainted  with  the  language,  common  sense  will 
often  enable  him  to  distinguish  between  the  really  indispensable 
and  the  superfluous.  Thus,  suppose  he  is  in  the  third  declension 
in  Latin,  and  has  come  to  the  words  with  accusatives  in  -im 
instead  of  -em ;  a  little  consideration  of  the  meanings  of  the 
words  amussis,  buris,  ravis,  sitis,  tussis,  and  vis  will  show  that  the 
chances  are  much  against  his  meeting  the  first  three  during  the  first 
year  of  his  study  of  the  language,  and,  in  short,  that  the  only 
words  in  the  list  that  can  possibly  occur  with  any  frequency  are 
sitis  and  vis.  These  therefore  he  will  learn,  and  ignore  the 
rest,  at  least  for  the  present.  In  going  over  rules  for  gender, 
lists  of  derivative  syllables,  and  so  on,  those  rules  should  be 
singled  out  which  are  easily  grasped  and  remembered,  which 
include  the  largest  number  of  important  words  and  have  the 
fewest  exceptions,  while  those  which  apply  only  to  a  few  words 
or  are  weakened  by  numerous  exceptions  should  be  passed 
over.  The  student  should  content  himself  at  first  with  obtain- 
ing general  ideas  of  the  structure  of  the  language,  and  should 
never  forget  that  even  the  most  accurate  and  exhaustive  know- 
ledge of  the  grammar  is  in  itself  only  a  step  towards  a  real 
knowledge  of  the  language. 

The  same  principles  should  be  followed  in  studying  the 
syntax  as  well  as  the  forms.  All  syntactical  rules  which  are 
common  to  language  generally,  or  apply  to  the  native  as  well 
as  the  foreign  language,  should  be  passed  over.  At  first  the 
student  should  confine  his  attention  to  those  rules  which  are 
absolutely  necessary  for  the  comprehension  of  the  structure  of 
the  language,  leaving  the  others  to  a  later  stage. 


25 2     THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

The  first  time  the  piece  for  the  day  is  read  over,  after  its 
meaning  has  been  learnt  from  the  translation,  it  should  be 
studied  analytically,  till  the  learner  understands  the  meaning 
and  construction  of  every  word,  as  far  as  his  then  state  of 
knowledge  will  allow  him.  In  revising  the  same  piece  the  day 
after,  its  sentences  should  be  read  over  and  studied  more  as 
wholes,  analysis  being  now  subordinated  to  synthesis.  Each 
sentence  should  be  read  over  and  over  again  till  it  can  be  re- 
peated without  hesitation  and  without  looking  at  the  book.  This 
method  gives  all  the  advantages  of  learning  long  passages  by 
heart  without  taking  so  much  time.  Of  course,  if  the  learner 
has  so  good  a  memory  that  with  a  little  more  trouble  he  can 
learn  by  heart  whole  paragraphs  and  pages,  by  all  means  let 
him  do  so. 

Attention  should  at  first  be  concentrated  mainly  on  the 
particles  and  commonest  words  together  with  the  general 
principles  of  the  syntax.  Unless  these  subjects  are  thoroughly 
mastered  at  the  outset,  the  learner  will  get  into  the  habit 
of  disregarding  them,  and  will  then  never  acquire  them 
properly,  however  much  practice  he  may  have  in  reading  and 
speaking. 

This  knowledge  and  that  of  the  vocabulary  require  distinct 
methods  of  study  :  the  former  can  be  acquired  only  by  careful 
and  repeated  study  of  a  very  limited  portion  of  the  literature, 
while  the  latter  demands  an  extensive,  and  therefore  necessarily 
rapid  and  less  careful  reading  of  all  the  representative  branches 
of  it.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  no  attempt  at  acquiring  the 
general  vocabulary  of  the  language  should  be  made  till  the 
particles  and  commonest  words  are  fully  mastered. 

Of  course,  as  the  learner  advances,  he  will  be  able  to  read 
with  greater  ease  and  rapidity.  Nevertheless  he  should  always 
set  apart  a  portion  of  his  time  every  day  for  slow  and  careful 
reading  with  frequent  repetition,  and  continue  this  practice 
up  to  the  very  end  of  his  course.  The  beginning  of  a 
new  work  on  a  new  subject  should  also  be  read  with  special 
care  till  the  more  important  elements  of  its  special  vocabu- 
lary have  been  well  learnt,  after  which  it  can  be  read  more 
cursorily. 

Careful  study  of  the  grammar  should  be  carried  on  con- 
currently with  text-reading,  and  this  should  go  on  during  the 
whole  course  of  study  :  there  should  be  no  idea  of  getting  up 
the  grammar  at  one  stroke,  and  then  throwing  it  aside.     In 


GENERAL   CONSIDERATIONS  253 

reading,  special  attention  should  be  paid  to  those  words  and 
constructions  which  bear  on  that  section  of  the  grammar  which 
is  being  studied  at  the  time. 

This  is  an  additional  reason  for  frequent  repetition  of  what 
has  been  read  during  the  last  few  months.  Thus,  if  a  certain 
text  has  been  read  while  the  learner  is  studying  the  syntax  of 
noun-inflections,  he  will  necessarily  neglect  the  syntax  of  the 
verb,  especially  if  he  has  not  yet  studied  that  part  of  the 
grammar  in  detail.  Hence,  when  he  has  come  to  the  syntax 
of  the  verb  and  has  mastered  it  fairly  well,  he  ought  to  go  over 
the  text  he  read  before,  partly  to  get  fresh  examples  of  the 
syntactical  rules  he  has  just  been  learning,  partly  to  perfect  his 
knowledge  of  the  text  by  means  of  his  newly  acquired  syntac- 
tical knowledge. 

For  those  words  and  constructions  which  offer  special 
difficulties  the  learner  may  collect  further  illustrations  from  the 
texts  either  on  slips  or  in  his  note-book.  The  use  of  note-books 
and  collections  generally  should,  however,  not  be  carried  so  far 
as  to  interfere  with  the  study  of  the  texts  themselves  ;  nor  is 
anything  gained  in  itself  by  removing  words  from  their  natural 
context  to  the  isolation  of  the  note-book.  The  learner  should 
always  bear  in  mind  that  there  is  no  short  cut  to  the  knowledge 
of  a  language,  and  that  this  knowledge  can  only  be  obtained 
by  persevering  study  of  the  language  itself  as  embodied  in  the 
actual  literature,  and  that  the  whole  machinery  of  grammar, 
dictionary,  and  note-book  is  merely  a  preparation  and  an 
aid  for  this  text-study,  not  a  substitute  for  it.  No  plan  of 
study  can  be  a  sound  one,  in  which  reading  the  texts  them- 
selves does  not  take  up,  on  an  average,  two-thirds  of  the  whole 
time. 

It  need,  therefore,  hardly  be  said  that  the  less  time  given  to 
composition  and  elegant  translation — not  to  speak  of  exercise- 
writing — the  better.  Idiomatic  translation  from  the  foreign 
language  is  beneficial  in  many  ways,  but  should  not  be 
attempted  too  early.  When  a  firm  grasp  of  the  language  has 
been  attained,  it  will  be  time  to  contrast  its  characteristic 
features  with  those  of  the  native  language  by  means  of  such 
translation.  In  the  intermediate  stage  between  this  and  the 
very  beginning,  the  student  should  learn  new  words  and  phrases 
as  far  as  possible  by  associating  them  directly  with  the  ideas 
they  express  rather  than  through  the  medium  of  his  own 
language. 


254    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

Translation  into  the  foreign  language,  and,  in  a  less  degree, 
original  composition  in  it  without  direct  imitation  of  any  known 
text,  is  a  task  of  great  difficulty,  even  when  a  tolerably  full 
command  of  the  foreign  language  has  been  attained.  Indeed, 
most  students  of  modern  languages  should  not  attempt  anything 
more  than  a  mastery  of  the  ordinary  forms  of  letter-writing.  In 
dead  languages  of  limited  literature,  all  attempts  at  translation 
into  them  or  original  composition  in  them  must  deal  with 
subjects  and  styles  for  which  patterns  can  be  found  in  the 
literature  of  the  language.  Thus  the  only  kind  of  translation 
into  Gothic  that  could  be  attempted  would  be  from  such  books 
as  the  Pilgrim's  Progress. 

No  study  requires  more  judgment  and  common-sense  than 
the  practical  study  of  languages.  The  various  capacities  of 
different  learners  also  make  it  difficult  to  lay  down  general 
rules.  The  three  requisites — sympathetic  insight  into  the 
structure  of  language,  ear  for  sounds  and  power  of  reproducing 
them,  together  withsa  good  memory — are  generally  combined  in 
different  proportions.  Almost  total  want  of  the  two  first  may 
also  be  combined  with  high  intelligence  and  power  of  dealing 
with  abstractions.  Such  learners  often  show  a  deceptive 
quickness  in  learning  the  grammar,  to  which  their  progress 
in  the  practical  command  of  the  language  by  no  means 
corresponds. 

So  varied  are  the  capacities  and  circumstances  of  different 
learners  and  their  aims  and  ideals  of  thoroughness,  that 
it  is  important  to  cultivate  a  sound  and  independent  judg- 
ment on  questions  of  method,  so  as  to  avoid  being  led 
astray  by  preconceived  theories,  and  to  acquire  the  power 
of  profiting  by  experience,  and  modifying  the  plan  of  study 
accordingly. 

Especial  judgment  is  necessary  in  settling  the  amount  of 
time  to  be  given  to  each  day's  work.  Each  extreme  is  equally 
hurtful.  If  the  learner  hurries  over  his  piece  of  reading,  he 
will  himself  feel  that  he  has  carried  away  only  a  blurred  mass 
of  associations  which  are  soon  forgotten.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  studies  too  elaborately,  sits  too  long  over  his  work,  and 
revises  too  often  or  at  too  frequent  intervals,  his  powers  of 
observation  become  blunted,  and  at  last  he  feels  that  his  reading 
makes  hardly  any  impression  on  his  mind,  and  that  he  gets 
nothing  more  out  of  it.     He  should,  therefore,  abstain  from 


GENERAL   CONSIDERATIONS  255 

all  attempts  at  exhaustive  analysis,  and  content  himself  with 
acquiring  as  many  new  associations  and  new  ideas  as  can  be 
firmly  fixed  in  his  mind  by  one  or  two  repetitions,  while  at 
the  same  time  he  seizes  every  opportunity  of  confirming  earlier 
associations.  He  must  also  remember  that  by  the  mere  process 
of  careful  reading  he  is  acquiring  a  number  of  unconscious 
associations,  many  of  which  he  will  be  able  to  analyze  con- 
sciously hereafter,  while  many  he  will  not  find  analyzed  in 
any  grammar,  some  of  them,  indeed,  practically  defying  all 
analysis. 


CHAPTER   XX 

ORIGINAL   INVESTIGATION 

We  have  hitherto  confined  ourselves  to  that  study  of  languages 
which  deals  with  a  language  that  has  been  already  reduced  to 
writing  and  analyzed  grammatically.  We  have  also  generally 
assumed  the  existence  of  dictionaries  and  reading-books  and  of 
texts  for  further  practice  in  the  language.  This  kind  of  study 
does  not,  therefore,  require  any  originality  or  independence  of 
judgment  on  the  part  of  the  learner  beyond  that  of  selecting 
his  helps  and  forming  a  plan  of  study  suitable  to  his  special 
needs  and  idiosyncrasies,  and  this  only  when  he  is  self-taught. 

Decipherment 

The  task  of  the  investigator  who  aims  at  reducing  an  un- 
written language  to  writing,  and  then  analyzing  it  grammatically 
and  lexically,  is  a  very  different  one.  It  calls  not  only  for 
original  research,  but  also  for  enterprise,  tact,  and  perseverance 
of  a  higher  kind  than  is  required  in  the  more  plodding  work  of 
learning  a  language  by  means  of  helps  already  provided  by 
others. 

The  unfamiliarity  of  the  language  may  be  of  any  degree. 
It  makes  a  good  deal  of  difference  whether  the  language  is 
isolated  in  its  affinities  or  is  cognate  with  some  other  accessible 
language  or  group  of  languages.  In  the  latter  case  the  study 
of  the  new  language  may  mean  little  more  than  the  investiga- 
tion of  a  new  dialect  of  a  known  language.  But  even  the 
investigation  of  the  spoken  form  of  one's  own  language  is 
really  to  some  extent  the  investigation  of  a  new  language, 
especially  if  the  real  features  of  the  spoken  language  are 
concealed  by  an  unphonetic  traditional  orthography.  Thus 
the  investigation  of  the  complicated  phenomena  of  gradation 

256 


ORIGINAL   INVESTIGATION  257 

in  spoken  English — such  distinctions  as  those  between  (kaen, 
Saet,  wil)  and  their  weak  forms  (kan,  Sat,  1) — is  practically  the 
study  of  an  unknown  language,  for  the  written  language 
generally  ignores  not  only  the  details,  but  the  very  principle 
itself  of  gradation.  So  also  with  the  colloquial  elision  of  the 
'  mute  e '  (3)  in  French.  Wherever  we  have  to  construct  a  new 
system  of  phonetic  notation,  there  we  may  be  said  practically 
to  have  to  deal  with  a  more  or  less  new  language. 

It  may  happen  that  the  language  has  been  written  down  by 
its  speakers,  so  that  we  have  written  texts  to  start  with,  but 
that  nothing  further  has  been  done  in  the  way  of  linguistic 
analysis,  or  that  more  remains  to  be  done. 

The  most  important  cases  of  this  kind  are  those  of  dead 
languages  made  known  to  us  by  inscriptions  and  other  docu- 
ments whose  traditional  reading  has  been  lost.  Such  are  the 
inscriptions  in  the  cuneiform  writing  which  from  the  valley  of 
the  Euphrates  spread  over  the  adjacent  countries,  and  was 
used  to  write  a  variety  of  languages  ;  first,  the  Sumerian  or 
Accadian  language  spoken  by  the  Finno-Tartaric  founders  of 
the  old  Babylonian  or  Chaldean  civilization  and  the  neigh- 
bouring nations  of  the  same  stock,  and  then  of  the  Semitic 
Babylonians  and  Assyrians,  and  lastly  of  the  Aryan  Persians 
and  Cypriote  Greeks,  together  with  some  other  languages. 
The  hieroglyphs  of  Egypt  seem  also  to  be  of  Babylonian  origin  ; 
in  their  oldest  forms  they  preserve  the  pictorial  foundation  of 
the  cuneiform  writing.  Fresh  riddles  are  afforded  by  the  Hittite 
inscriptions  and  those  of  Southern  Arabia,  together  with  the  much 
later  hieroglyphs  of  Central  America. 

With  all  unknown  texts  the  method  of  decipherment  is  the 
same  in  its  general  principles,  however  much  it  may  vary 
under  different  conditions. 

In  the  first  place,  no  decipherment  is  possible  without  some 
known  quantity.  Shelley  tells  us  of  the  youth  in  his  poem  of 
A  las  tor  that 

'  His  wandering  step, 
Obedient  to  high  thoughts,  has  visited 
The  awful  ruins  of  the  days  of  old  : 
Athens,  and  Tyre,  and  Balbec,  and  the  waste 
Where  stood  Jerusalem,  the  fallen  towers 
Of  Babylon,  the  eternal  pyramids, 


258    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

Memphis  and  Thebes,  and  whatsoe'er  of  strange 

Sculptured  on  alabaster  obelisk, 

Or  jasper  tomb,  or  mutilated  sphynx, 

Dark  Ethiopia  in  her  desert  hills 

Conceals.     Among  the  ruined  temples  there, 

Stupendous  columns,  and  wild  images 

Of  more  than  man,  where  marble  daemons  watch 

The  Zodiac's  brazen  mystery,  and  dead  men 

Hang  their  mute  thoughts  on  the  mute  walls  around, 

He  lingered,  poring  on  memorials 

Of  the  world's  youth,  through  the  long  burning  day 

Gazed  on  those  speechless  shapes,  nor,  when  the  moon 

Filled  the  mysterious  halls  with  floating  shades, 

Suspended  he  that  task,  but  ever  gazed 

^.nd  gazed,  till  meaning  on  his  vacant  mind 

Flashed  like  strong  inspiration,  and  he  saw 

The  thrilling  secrets  of  the  birth  of  time.' 

But  this  is  a  description  of  what  may  be,  not  of  what  is :  with 
our  present  faculties  we  must  go  to  work  in  a  slower  and  more 
methodical  way — we  must  have  something  to  start  from.  It  is 
the  want  of  this  starting-point,  this  known  quantity,  which  still 
baffles  us  in  the  Etruscan  inscriptions.  The  Etruscan  alphabet 
offers  none  of  the  formidable  difficulties  of  the  cuneiform  and 
the  Egyptian  writing,  being,  indeed,  almost  as  easy  to  read  as 
the  Greek  alphabet  from  which  it  is  derived ;  but  the  key  to 
unlock  the  meaning  of  the  words  has  not  yet  been  found. 
We  know  that  certain  words  are  numerals,  but  we  do  not  know 
in  what  order  to  take  them,  nor  have  we  yet  found  any  solid 
basis  of  comparison  with  other  languages.  Until  a  bilingual 
inscription  is  found  into  which  some  known  language  enters, 
it  does  not  seem  likely  that  we  shall  advance  further  than 
guesses  at  a  few  isolated  words. 

In  the  case  of  the  cuneiform  inscriptions,  the  known  quantities 
were  certain  proper  names  in  the  Persian  inscriptions,  which  led 
to  the  discovery  of  a  genitive  plural  ending,  the  language  itself 
being  practically  known  beforehand  through  being  an  Aryan 
language  closely  allied  to  Sanskrit  and  practically  almost 
identical  with  Zend.  In  the  Persian  inscriptions  the  com- 
plicated syllabic  writing  of  the  Babylonians  had  been  simplified 
into  a  comparatively  easy  system  which  had  nearly  emerged 
into  the  simplicity  of  the  Phenician  alphabet  with  its  single 
letter  for  each  consonant.  If  we  had  had  only  the  original 
Sumerian  inscriptions  to  go  upon,  the  problem  would  have  been 


ORIGINAL   INVESTIGATION  259 

hopeless.  As  it  was,  the  numerous  bilingual  and  trilingual  in- 
scriptions into  which  cuneiform  Old  Persian  entered  soon  enabled 
the  decipherers  to  read  the  Semitic  inscriptions  first  in  the 
Assyrian  and  then  in  the  more  difficult  and  archaic  Babylonian 
writing.  But  the  great  difficulties  of  the  task  could  hardly  have 
been  surmounted  if  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  Semitic  had  not 
been  practically  little  more  than  dialects  of  classical  Arabic 
and  Hebrew.  When  the  Semitic  inscriptions  had  once  been 
read,  the  bilingual  inscriptions  in  Semitic  and  Sumerian  made 
the  discovery  of  the  latter  language  and  its  cognates  a  matter 
of  certainty. 

So  also  with  modern  texts.  Even  if  the  strange  language 
is  presented  to  us  in  Roman  transcription  and  in  a  connected 
text  of  some  length,  we  can  do  nothing  in  the  way  of  decipher- 
ing it  till  we  either  know  what  known  languages  to  compare  it 
with,  or  have  a  translation,  or,  at  any  rate,  know  what  the  text 
is  about.  If  we  know,  for  instance,  that  it  is  a  translation  of 
the  Gospels  or  of  the  Prayer-book,  the  decipherment  is  only  a 
question  of  time. 


Help  afforded  by  Comparative  Philology 

Of  all  helps,  that  of  comparative  philology  is  the  most 
uncertain  and  the  most  liable  to  mislead  unless  severely  con- 
trolled by  a  critical  and  scientific  habit  of  mind.  One  page  of 
translation  is  worth  any  number  of  comparisons  with  other 
languages  and  conjectural  etymologies.  All  that  a  comparison 
of  a  certain  word  with  some  other  word  in  a  known  language 
can  do  is  to  give  hints  which  may  lead  to  the  discovery  of  its 
true  meaning. 

First  there  is  the  difficulty  of  proving  that  the  similarity  is 
anything  but  accidental.  If  the  two  languages  are  only 
distantly  connected,  the  trained  philologist  distrusts  any  great 
similarity.  It  takes  very  little  theoretical  divergence  to  make 
languages  mutually  unintelligible.  A  speaker  of  High  German 
who  does  not  know  Platt-Deutsch  can  hardly  understand  a 
word  of  Dutch,  nor  can  a  Dutchman  understand  Frisian,  nor 
a  Frisian  an  Englishman,  although  Frisian  is  more  closely 
related  to  English  than  to  any  other  Germanic  language. 
Even  two  dialects  of  the  same  language  may  be  mutually 
unintelligible.      Philological   dilettantes    who   have   learnt   to 


260    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

pick  out  similarities  between  cognate  languages  and  to  ignore 
the  differences,  often  rush  into  the  most  extravagant  statements 
about  the  similarities  between  languages.  Thus  they  look 
into  a  Dutch  book,  and  boast  that  with  nothing  but  a  know- 
ledge of  German  and  English  to  help  them,  they  can  read  the 
language  at  sight,  not  considering  that  a  great  many  of  the 
words  they  recognize  by  their  forms  have  quite  different  mean- 
ings from  what  they  have  in  German  and  English,  and  that  some 
of  the  resemblances  may  be  accidental  and  misleading — that, 
for  instance,  of  has  nothing  to  do  with  English  of  but  has  the 
meaning  '  or ; '  os,  plural  ossen,  does  not  mean  '  horse,'  but  '  ox,' 
and  so  on. 

When  Leibnitz  first  noticed  the  agreements  in  vocabulary 
between  Persian  and  German  which  are  the  result  of  both 
being  Aryan  languages,  he  was  so  carried  away  by  his  dis- 
covery that  he  ventured  on  the  astounding  assertion  that  the 
similarity  between  the  two  languages  was  so  great  that  an 
educated  German  could  understand  whole  strophes  of  Persian 
poetry.  The  simple  answer  to  this  is,  that  if  a  North  German 
cannot  understand  more  than  a  word  here  and  there  of  a  South 
German  dialect,  it  is  not  likely  that  he  should  understand  more 
of  a  language  which  is  not  only  non-Germanic,  but  belongs  to 
the  most  remote  subdivision  of  the  Aryan  family.  There  are 
certainly  some  very  remarkable  resemblances  between  English 
or  German  on  the  one  hand,  and  modern  Persian  on  the 
other,  some  of  which  are  due  to  real  affinity,  but  these  few 
similarities  are  not  enough  to  counterbalance  the  divergences  in 
the  rest  of  the  Aryan  portion  of  the  vocabulary,  together  with  the 
fact  that  about  half  the  vocabulary  is  Arabic.  The  comparative 
philologist,  of  course,  ignores  the  latter  element,  but  to  the 
practical  linguist  a  modern  Persian  word  of  Arabic  origin  is 
just  as  much  a  Persian  word  as  one  of  Aryan  origin  ;  and  the 
decipherer  has  to  approach  his  problems  from  the  practical 
point  of  view. 

The  decipherer  will  then  always  distrust  great  similarity. 
The  degree  of  average  similarity  that  he  expects  will  depend 
on  the  closeness  of  affinity  between  the  two  languages.  Thus, 
if  he  is  comparing  a  Germanic  with  a  Slavonic  language,  he 
will  expect  on  the  whole  greater  divergence  between  them  than 
between  the  Germanic  language  and  any  other  Germanic  language. 
So  also  if  he  is  comparing  the  Germanic  languages  as  a  whole 
with  the  Finnic  languages,  he  will  expect  the  general  divergence 


ORIGINAL   INVESTIGATION  261 

between  the  two  families — the  Germanic  and  the  Finnic — to 
be  greater  than  that  between  the  most  distant  members  of  the 
Aryan  family  or  the  most  distant  members  of  the  Finnic 
family.  If  he  meets  in  Finnish  such  words  as  hmingas,  '  king,' 
which  are  almost  identical  in  form  and  meaning  with  words  in 
the  Germanic  languages,  while  the  corresponding  cognate 
words  in  such  closely  allied  Aryan  languages  as  the  Slavonic 
are  mostly  so  different  that  their  affinity  with  the  Germanic 
words  requires  elaborate  proof,  he  at  once  assumes  that  most 
of  such  agreements  are  the  result  of  borrowing  on  one  side  or 
the  other — in  this  case  on  the  Finnish  side. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  borrowed  words  are  among  the 
most  valuable  aids  to  the  decipherer,  just  as  they  are  to  the 
practical  linguist.  Although  their  identity  may  be  occasionally 
disguised  by  changes  of  form  and  meaning,  their  evidence  is 
generally  of  a  much  more  direct  character  than  that  of  cognate 
words,  and  if  the  borrowing  is  of  recent  date,  there  is  no 
reason  why  there  should  be  any  divergence  at  all  in  meaning 
or  any  but  a  slight  divergence  in  form. 

Etymological  affinity,  on  the  other  hand,  proves  nothing — it 
only  raises  expectations  which  may  be  fulfilled  or  not.  Thus, 
if  in  learning  German  I  come  on  the  word  fusz,  I  guess,  on  the 
analogy  of  the  identity  of  the  form  and  meaning  of  German 
hand  with  that  of  the  English  hand,  that  it  is  cognate  with  the 
"English,  foot  and  has  the  same  meaning.  But  if  I  were  to  go 
on  to  assume  on  similar  grounds  that  German  kopf  is  not  only 
cognate  with  English  cup,  but  has  the  same  meaning,  I  should 
find  myself  as  much  hampered  in  my  attempts  at  decipherment 
by  this  correct  etymological  identification  as  by  any  incorrect 
one.  Of  course,  when  I  once  find  out  that  kopf  means  '  head,' 
my  knowledge  of  the  changes  of  meanings  in  other  languages 
would  enable  me  to  prove  that  this  change  of  meaning  is 
quite  a  natural  one.  I  might,  indeed,  have  been  prepared  at 
the  outset  for  this  change  of  meaning ;  but  experience  shows 
that  such  flights  of  a  prioj'i  imagination  may  lead  to  results 
which  are  as  baseless  as  they  are  plausible. 

Hence  we  find  that  while  the  older  school  of  cuneiform 
investigators  made  great  use  of  comparisons  with  Hebrew  and 
the  other  Semitic  languages,  and  thereby  obtained  many 
valuable  hints  towards  decipherment,  the  later  scholars  have 
got  their  best  and  most  reliable  results  by  the  comparison  of 
parallel  uses  of  words  in  the  texts  themselves,  so   that   the 


262     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

testimony  of  comparative  philology  has  now  only  a  secondary 
weight :  the  evidence  of  the  texts  settles  the  etymology,  the 
etymology  does  not  settle  the  meaning  of  the  text. 

Decipherment  a  Practical  Problem 

We  see,  then,  that  decipherment  is  more  a  practical  than  a 
theoretically  scientific  problem,  and  that  even  when  it  calls  in 
the  help  of  comparative  philology,  its  methods  still  are  more 
allied  to  those  of  the  practical  linguist  than  of  the  comparative 
philologist.  Gabelentz  has  some  interesting  remarks  on  this 
subject  (Gab.  76) ;  in  speaking  of  the  method  of  dealing  with 
languages  in  which  we  have  only  texts  in  a  known  alphabet  to 
start  with,  without  any  help  beyond  a  translation  or  general 
knowledge  of  the  contents,  he  says — 

'  It  might  seem  that  in  dealing  with  texts  in  a  foreign 
language  we  should  have  to  rely  from  the  beginning  entirely  on 
learned  investigations.  But  this  is  not  the  case  :  here,  as 
elsewhere,  a  purely  naive  attitude  (naives  verhalten)  is  best  at 
first.  Let  the  student  read  a  few  pages,  aloud  if  possible,  in 
order  to  help  the  memory  by  the  ear  as  well.  In  doing  so,  he 
need  not  trouble  himself  particularly  about  the  correctness  of 
the  pronunciation,  taking  care  only  to  distinguish  whatever  is 
written  differently  [p.  34].  He  will  soon  notice  that  words, 
perhaps  also  word-stems  and  word-forms,  repeat  themselves,  and 
perhaps  occasionally  discovers  their  meaning.  In  this  way  the 
instinct  of  analysis  gradually  asserts  itself,  the  text  talks  to  us, 
and  we  learn  to  understand  it  better  page  by  page.  Any 
one  who  learns  by  heart  easily,  and  only  wants  to  get  a 
practical  command  of  the  language,  will  probably  attain  his 
object  quicker  in  this  way  than  if  he  conscientiously  set  to 
work  to  make  collections  (collectanien)  like  a  philological 
investigator.' 

Gabelentz  then  goes  on  to  recommend  this  method  of 
learning  languages  as  a  useful  training  for  every  linguist  and 
philologist ;  he  says — 

1  If  he  chooses  some  remote,  but  not  too  difficult  language, 
such  as  one  of  the  Bantu  family,  a  Malay,  Polynesian,  Mela- 
nesian,  or  a  Ural-altaic  language,  he  can  be  certain  of  success, 
even  if  he  has  no  previous  acquaintance  with  any  of  the 
languages  belonging  to  the  family.  He  will  at  the  same  time 
receive  a  quantity  of  entirely  new  scientific  ideas,  his  sagacity 


ORIGINAL   INVESTIGATION  263 

will  be  exercised,  and  after  a  short  spell  of  certainly  rather 
dry  labour,  he  will  have  the  enjoyment  of  self-gained  know- 
ledge which  increases  hour  by  hour.  And  skill  in  this  method 
of  investigation  is  immensely  increased  by  practice.  We 
all  know  that  a  talent  for  languages  does  not  always  imply 
scientific  capacity.  But  he  who  is  trained  in  this  school  may 
expect  that  his  scientific  judgment  will  increase  in  the  same 
proportion  as  his  linguistic  knowledge,  for  in  such  work 
theoretical  speculation  comes  of  itself.' 

Work  of  this  kind  might  well  form  part  of  the  training  in  an 
ideal  seminary  of  comparative  philology  in  its  wider  sense  in 
which  it  is  equivalent  to  the  German  '  allgemeine  sprachwissen- 
schaft.' 

All  Text-reading  Implies  Originality 

The  methods  of  studying  languages  we  have  just  been  con- 
sidering all  imply  a  considerable  amount  of  originality.  But 
there  is  no  absolute  line  of  demarcation  in  this  respect  between 
the  most  difficult  decipherment  of  an  unknown  inscription  and 
the  reading  of  the  easiest  text  in  the  most  familiar  language. 
All  free  text-reading  implies  a  certain  amount  of  independent 
thought.  Even  in  reading  our  own  language  we  may  at  any 
moment  come  upon  unknown  words  and  obscure  or  ambiguous 
constructions  without  being  able  to  get  help  from  any  dictionary 
or  grammar. 

Text-editing  :    Original  Research 

In  deciphering  a  new  text  in  a  known  language,  as  when  a 
philologist  copies  and  edits  a  hitherto  unpublished  manuscript 
text,  the  originality  reduces  itself  to  explaining  such  meanings 
of  words  and  phrases  and  grammatical  constructions  as  cannot 
be  found  in  the  existing  dictionaries  and  grammars  and  other 
helps.  If  the  text  is  a  literal  translation  whose  original  is 
accessible,  the  originality  may  be  reduced  almost  to  a  vanishing- 
point.  A  good  deal  of  what  is  grandiloquently  called  '  original 
research '  is  purely  mechanical  work,  requiring  almost  less 
originality  than  the  routine  of  a  bank  clerk.,  The  '  researcher  ' 
looks  through  a  catalogue  of  manuscripts,  and  finds,  say,  a 
Treatise  on  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins  in  the  Kentish  dialect  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  or  a  fragment  of  a  translation  of  the  French 
romance  of  The  Adventures  of  Sir  Arthur  and  tfie  Green  Lady, 


264    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

which  his  professor  assures  him  has  never  been  published.  Our 
student  copies  it  by  the  help  of  a  facsimile  of  the  handwriting 
of  the  manuscript,  translates  it  with  the  help  of  the  Latin  or 
French  original,  and  then  publishes  the  text  with  a  glossary  and 
introduction,  two-thirds  of  which  perhaps  is  written  by  his 
professor.  On  the  strength  of  this  original  research  he  is  then 
himself  made  a  professor — a  professor  who  never  in  the  whole 
course  of  a  long  and  laborious  career  shows  the  slightest  glim- 
mering of  originality. 

The  evils  of  the  German  system  which  requires,  if  not  the 
reality,  at  least  the  semblance  of  originality  from  every  candi- 
date for  a  doctor's  degree  are  manifold  and  self-evident.  Any 
measure  that  would  stop  this  over-production  would  be  welcome. 
Some  kind  of  tax  on  useless  and  superfluous  literature  is  much 
needed. 

Investigations  of  Unwritten  Speech 

The  investigation  of  unwritten  forms  of  speech  requires  much 
higher  qualities  than  publishing  a  manuscript  text.  Phonetic 
training,  quickness  of  observation,  presence  of  mind,  are  here 
essential. 

Equally  important  is  the  power  of  recording  one's  observa- 
tions in  phonetic  writing.  I  remember  a  young  foreign  philo- 
logist showing  me  his  notes  of  the  pronunciation  of  some 
Turkish  dialect,  written  in  a  phonetic  notation  he  had  hastily 
improvised  on  a  French  basis,  the  result  being  that  he  had  to 
confess  that  he  was  quite  unable  to  remember  what  sounds  his 
symbols  stood  for.  He  was  no  phonetician,  and  made  no 
pretence  of  a  knowledge  of  phonetics.  But  there  are  many 
who  profess  to  be  phoneticians,  and  are  almost  equally  helpless 
when  they  have  to  face  the  difficulties  of  having  to  write  down 
a  dialect  for  the  first  time. 

Such  work  requires  not  only  accuracy,  but  quickness.  For 
really  good  dialectal  work,  a  phonetic  shorthand  will  in  future 
be  regarded  as  indispensable. 

But  however  well-equipped  with  theoretical  and  practical 
knowledge  the  investigator  may  be,  and  however  much  practice 
he  may  have  had,  the  phonetic  analysis  of  a  new  dialect  and 
the  writing  down  of  its  sounds  must  always  be  a  slow  and 
difficult  process  at  first.     Let  the  beginner  be  under  no  delusions 


ORIGINAL   INVESTIGATION  265 

on  this  point :  no  one  can  write  a  language  down  straight  off 
under  such  circumstances.  All  who  profess  to  be  able  to  do 
so  deceive  themselves.  Even  familiar  and  easy  distinctions 
such  as  that  of  close  and  open  vowels  are  often  confusing  in  a 
new  language :  what  is,  relatively  speaking,  the  close  sound 
may  be  a  little  opener  than  in  other  languages,  so  that  the 
observer  perhaps  writes  it  down  roughly  and  tentatively  as  (t) ; 
but  when  he  finds  a  still  opener  sound  which  is,  however,  not 
so  open  as  the  (a?)  in  English  man,  he  sees  that  he  has  made 
a  phonetic  shifting  or  '  verschiebung,'  so  that  what  he  at  first 
wrote  (e)  must  be  written  (e),  and  what  he  at  first  wrote  (ae) 
must  be  written  (e). 

Again,  many  beginners,  in  listening  to  the  speech  of  a  native, 
will  often  confidently  assert  that  the  pronunciation  of  a  certain 
sound  varies  from  word  to  word ;  and  when  the  natives  assure 
them  that  they  are  mistaken,  they  only  regard  it  as  a  proof  of 
their  own  superior  acuteness  of  hearing;  they  do  not  know 
that  it  is  one  of  the  surest  signs  of  unfamiliarity  with  the  sound 
in  question  :  the  impressions  of  the  ear  sway,  as  it  were,  from 
side  to  side  in  the  vain  attempt  to  identify  the  unfamiliar  sound 
with  some  familiar  one ;  and  when  the  sound  is  thoroughly 
mastered,  this  fluctuation  ceases. 

This  leads  to  another  consideration.  We  cannot  write  down 
a  strange  language  or  dialect  till  we  know  it  practically.  We 
can  only  write  down  what  is  familiar  to  us.  Till  the  elements 
of  the  language  are  familiar  to  us  we  can  only  take  rough 
provisional  notes.  The  only  way  to  describe  the  formation  of 
the  strange  sounds  is  to  describe  the  organic  actions  by  which 
we  imitate  them.  Experimental  phonetics  may  some  day  alter 
this,  but  at  present  it  is  practically  the  way  in  which  we  have  to 
analyze  strange  sounds.  It  is  the  same  with  the  idioms  and 
constructions  of  the  language :  at  first  we  can  only  write  down 
what  we  have  assimilated  ourselves. 

Help  from  Natives. — An  evident  objection  to  this  method 
is  that  unless  our  knowledge  is  perfect,  our  description  of  the 
new  form  of  speech  cannot  be  perfect.  As  the  only  people 
who  have  this  perfect  knowledge  are  the  speakers  themselves, 
a  second  method  suggests  itself,  that  of  training  an  intelligent 
native  to  do  the  work  under  the  supervision  of  the  foreign 
investigator. 


266    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

The  investigator  should  first  try  to  find  some  speaker  of  the 
dialect  who  is  intelligent  enough  to  be  able  to  learn  to  use  a 
phonetic  notation,  and  sufficiently  interested  in  the  subject  to  take 
the  trouble  of  writing  down  the  tales,  songs,  riddles,  or  other 
traditional  pieces  he  remembers,  or  making  dialogues  and  other 
texts  on  topics  suggested  by  the  investigator.  A  young  village 
schoolmaster  will  often  prove  the  best  help  in  this  way. 

At  first  the  native  will  write  his  texts  in  a  mixture  of  dialectal 
and  literary  forms.  The  investigator,  by  comparing  parallel 
passages  and  noting  apparent  inconsistencies,  will  soon  find 
these  out,  and  by  degrees  will  be  able  to  train  the  native  to 
write  phonetically.  The  first  prejudices  once  overcome,  the 
latter  will  soon  take  a  pleasure  and  pride  in  being  as  purely 
colloquial  as  possible,  and  will  perhaps  feel  something  of  the 
charm  of  exploring  a  country  which  is  at  once  strange  and 
familiar. 

This  last  method  always  implies  practically  a  combination 
of  it  with  the  preceding  one.  Compared  with  this  combined 
method  of  learning  the  language  oneself,  and  training  a  native 
to  write  it  down,  all  other  methods  are  mere  makeshifts. 

Questioning. — The  one  that  is  most  frequently  employed 
is,  perhaps,  that  of  questioning.  If  the  investigator  has  to  deal 
with  the  language  of  illiterate  savages,  of  whose  language  he  is 
ignorant,  he  has,  of  course,  to  begin  with  gesture.  Here  he  will 
meet  with  the  difficulties  already  discussed  under  '  visualizing ' 
(p.  209).  If  he  points  to  his  mouth,  he  may  get  the  word  for 
4  mouth,'  but  he  is  just  as  likely  to  get  '  bite,  eat,  teeth,  lip.'  If 
he  is  certain  that  it  is  '  teeth '  and  not  lips,  he  is  still  in  doubt 
whether  the  plural  or  the  singular  is  meant. 

Prolonged  questioning  is  apt  to  tire  the  intelligent  European 
schoolmaster,  still  more  the  flighty  barbarian.  Many  a  traveller 
who  has  attracted  crowds  of  dusky  natives  into  his  tent  by  dis- 
playing his  stores,  has  soon  found  himself  alone  when  he  begins 
to  ask  them  questions  about  their  language  and  religious  views. 

If  the  natives  have  a  keener  sense  of  humour  than  of  the 
obligations  of  veracity,  they  may  revenge  themselves  by  giving 
misleading  answers.  A  missionary  who  had  been  in  the  South 
Seas  was  once  observed  to  burst  into  repeated  fits  of  laughter 
while  reading  what  professed  to  be  a  list  of  numerals  in  a 
Polynesian  language  with  which  he  was  familiar.  He  explained 
that,  knowing  that  the  speakers  of  this  language  could  not  count 


ORIGINAL   INVESTIGATION  267 

beyond  twenty,  he  was  at  first  surprised  and  interested  to  find 
the  numerals  given  as  high  as  ten  thousand,  but  found  that  all 
the  higher  numbers  were  simply  strings  of  words  of  the  most 
ludicrous  and  improper  associations. 

The  European  peasant  of  the  north  is  apt  to  turn  sulky,  if 
questioned  beyond  a  certain  point.  A  story  is  told  of  a  Swedish 
dialectologist  who,  wishing  to  know  what  was  the  preterite  of 
the  verb  die  in  a  certain  Swedish  dialect,  asked  one  of  the 
natives  whether  he  said  /  died  or  /  dew.  The  only  answer  he 
could  get  was,  '  When  we  are  dead,  we  don't  speak.' 

Still  more  hopeless  is  the  method  of  investigating  a  dialect 
by  means  of  correspondence,  although  it  must  be  confessed 
that  Ellis  by  this  means  accumulated  a  vast  mass  of  information 
about  the  English  dialects  which  would  otherwise  have  been 
lost.  But  such  information  cannot  under  ordinary  circumstances 
be  reliable.  It  must  be  remembered  also  that  the  information 
given  in  the  fifth  part  of  Ellis's  Early  English  Pronunciation, 
although  originally  obtained  by  correspondence,  was  in  many 
cases  checked  by  personal  interviews  with  his  authorities. 

The  only  possible  way  of  dealing  satisfactorily  with  a  whole 
body  of  dialects  such  as  the  English,  is  to  have  a  school  of 
phonetics  at  some  real  University  which  will  attract  speakers 
of  the  different  dialects,  each  of  whom  will  pursue  his  investiga- 
tions under  his  teacher  on  a  uniform  plan. 

Collecting  Materials 

Every  one  has  his  own  methods  of  literary  work,  and  every 
investigator  of  unwritten  dialects  has  his  own  way  of  collecting 
his  material.  But  this  does  not  prove  that  there  are  not  certain 
broad  principles  of  general  application.  A  method  which  makes 
elaborate  and  carefully  digested  collections  useless  to  others 
cannot  be  a  sound  one. 

Handwriting. — The  first  requisite  is  to  write  clearly. 
Business  men  and  those  who  keep  secretaries  can  afford  the 
luxury  and  distinction  of  writing  an  illegible  hand.  Scientific 
investigators,  who  seldom  do  good  work  after  starting  a  secre- 
tary, and  who  often  have  to  read  nothing  but  their  own  hand- 
writing for  months  together,  must  learn  to  write. 


268    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

Their  writing  should  be  as  small  as  is  convenient  for  their 
sight,  and  as  compact  as  possible,  the  letters  being  nearly  up- 
right and  close  together,  without  more  separation  between  the 
words  than  is  necessary.  They  should  get  into  the  habit  of 
always  leaving  a  margin — which  may  be  marked  by  folding  the 
paper — of  writing  in  paragraphs  and  on  one  side  of  the  paper 
only,  so  as  to  be  able  to  make  additions  on  the  back — unless 
they  are  writing  in  a  book,  and  then  only  when  saving  of  space 
is  essential.  If  they  can  write  evenly  without  ruled  lines,  their 
handwriting  will  be  all  the  better. 

Such  a  system  of  writing  as  my  Current  Shorthand  will  be 
found  to  add  greatly  to  the  speed  and  ease  of  literary  work, 
as  it  can  both  be  written  quicker  and  packed  into  a  smaller 
space  than  ordinary  longhand,  even  if  written  without  any 
special  contractions. 

Notes  that  are  to  be  kept  for  any  length  of  time  should 
never  be  written  in  lead  pencil,  but  in  ink,  or,  if  that  is 
inconvenient,  with  a  solid  ink  pencil.  If  it  is  desired  to  make 
the  writing  with  the  latter  specially  distinct,  the  paper  should 
be  slightly  moistened,  and  the  pencil  carefully  sharpened.  For 
rapid  and  continuous  work  several  of  these  pencils  should  be 
kept  in  readiness. 

Form. — As  regards  the  form  of  the  paper  on  which  the 
collections  are  written,  they  may  take  the  form  of  slips,  of 
loose  sheets,  or  of  bound  books. 

For  the  first  preliminary  rough  work  of  collecting  isolated 
words  or  quotations  for  a  dictionary  or  grammar,  slips  are  the 
most  convenient.  The  proper  average  size  of  a  small  slip  is 
about  four  and  a  half  inches  by  two,  or  less  for  a  fine  writer ; 
a  short-sighted  writer  will  find  three  and  a  quarter  inches  by 
one  and  a  quarter  large  enough ;  he  will  be  able  to  write  the 
Lord's  Prayer  many  times  over  in  Current  Shorthand  on  one 
side  of  such  a  slip. 

If  the  slips  are  required  only  for  temporary  use,  and  a  great 
number  is  required,  they  may  be  of  thin  paper.  If  the 
collection  of  slips  is  intended  to  be  more  permanent  and  for 
reference,  they  should  be  of  stiffer  paper,  the  best  for  continuous 
use  being  evenly  cut  thin  cards. 

They  can  be  kept  in  boxes  like  cigar-boxes,  or,  better,  in 
shallow  trays  with  divisions. 


ORIGINAL   INVESTIGATION  269 

For  purposes  of  further  division  and  classification,  stiff  cards 
with  '  tabs '  or  square  pieces  in  the  middle  projecting  above 
the  general  level  may  be  inserted  at  intervals  among  the  slips, 
so  that  the  eye  can  see  the  letters  or  other  index-marks  on  the 
tabs  at  a  glance. 

If  accuracy  of  reference  is  essential,  the  slips  should  be  kept 
in  their  boxes  in  the  exact  order  in  which  they  were  first 
written,  which  of  course  will  be  the  order  in  which  the  words 
or  quotations  they  contain  occurred  in  the  text  which  was 
excerpted ;  and  then  each  reference  should  be  verified  before 
the  slips  are  sorted  into  an  alphabetic  or  any  other  order  which 
interferes  with  their  original  order. 

The  heading — the  word,  the  grammatical  categoiy,  etc. — 
should  be  written  at  the  top  left-hand  corner  of  the  slip,  the 
reference — name  of  text,  number  of  page  or  paragraph  and  line 
— at  the  right-hand  lower  corner,  the  quotation  itself  between. 

The  more  mechanically  the  work  of  slip-writing  is  done,  the 
better.  It  is  a  good  rule  never  to  put  two  entries  on  one  slip. 
There  is  no  occasion  to  economize  in  paper. 

The  great  advantage  of  slips  is  that  they  require  no  previous 
calculation  of  space ;  a  collection  of  slips  is  perfectly  elastic. 
Their  other  advantage  is  the  speed  with  which  they  can  be 
written,  as  they  involve  no  reference,  no  turning  over  of  pages. 
But  the  sorting  of  them  is  a  most  wearisome  and  irritating,  to 
some  minds  intolerable,  drudgery  ;  nor  can  the  sorting  be  left 
to  others  unless  it  is  purely  mechanical.  When  sorted,  they 
are  easily  misplaced  or  lost.  Altogether,  they  are  difficult  to 
handle  and  refer  to,  each  of  the  hundred  slips  which  make  up 
perhaps  only  a  page  of  print  being  practically  on  a  page  by 
itself. 

For  less  mechanical  or  more  comprehensive  collections  loose 
sheets,  nearly  square,  so  as  to  allow  room  for  a  margin,  are 
very  convenient,  five  inches  by  four  being  the  medium  size  for 
a  fine  shorthand-writer.  The  deductions  from  the  materials 
collected  on  slips  may  be  summarized  on  such  sheets.  If  there 
is  any  doubt  about  the  sequence  of  ideas,  or  any  probability  of 
additional  matter  coming  in,  each  sheet  may  be  restricted  to 
what  would  be  a  paragraph  in  a  book.  Indeed,  this  will  be 
found  the  most  convenient  way  of  preparing  a  book  for  press, 
as  the  paragraphs  can  be  rearranged  at  pleasure  till  the  book 
is  complete,  and  can  then  be  transcribed  into  longhand. 


270    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

The  sheets  can  be  kept  in  boxes  or  drawers,  or  can  be  kept 
together  with  indiarubber  bands  passing  over  sheets  of  stiff 
cardboard  at  both  ends  of  the  pile  of  sheets.  Larger  sheets 
can  be  kept  in  portfolios,  subdivisions  being  made  by  keeping 
each  lesser  group  inside  a  folded  sheet  of  thicker  paper. 

Bound  books,  according  to  Gabelentz,  are  suited  only  for 
travellers,  who  cannot  afford  to  risk  the  loss  of  slips  or  sheets. 
The  advantages  of  books  are  not  only  that  the  leaves  do  not 
get  lost  or  mislaid,  but  also  the  perfect  facility  of  reference, 
which,  again,  is  increased  by  the  greater  amount  of  matter  that 
can  be  included  in  one  page.  But  they  postulate  that  we  know 
beforehand  how  much  space  will  be  required,  or  else  involve 
a  great  waste  of  space,  which,  of  course,  diminishes  the  ease 
of  reference.  Then,  too,  the  order  of  the  quotations  or  the 
categories  under  which  they  are  put  cannot  be  altered  without 
causing  confusion  and  waste  of  space.  The  bigger  the  book, 
the  greater  the  waste  of  time  in  making  entries.  Some,  how- 
ever, still  prefer,  even  in  doing  a  glossary,  to  enter  the  head- 
words in  a  book — or  paste  the  headings  from  a  printed 
dictionary  along  the  margin — with  ample  blank  spaces,  to 
going  through  the  drudgery  of  sorting  slips  which  can  never 
be  made  easy  to  refer  to. 

Some  make  their  slips  more  easy  of  reference  by  pasting 
them  into  a  book.  For  this  purpose  any  strongly  bound 
printed  book  will  do.  It  is  only  necessary  to  cut  out  every 
sixth  leaf  or  so  in  order  to  allow  for  the  thickness  of  the  slips. 
The  work  of  pasting  down  the  slips  is  irksome,  but  it  may  be 
shortened  by  simply  running  two  lines  of  paste  down  the  page, 
and  then  putting  down  the  slips  without  having  to  apply  the 
paste  to  each  separately.  But  the  result  is  always  untidy  and 
wanting  in  compactness.  A  practical  shorthand-writer  would 
hardly  hesitate  between  this  method  and  the  slower  but  far 
more  satisfactory  one  of  simply  copying  his  slips  into  a  book  in 
shorthand. 

It  is  never  worth  while  to  interleave  printed  books  such  as 
dictionaries  unless  we  are  certain  of  having  to  make  numerous 
entries  into  them.  Otherwise  it  is  better  to  write  on  the 
margin,  and,  if  necessary,  insert  a  sheet  occasionally,  either 
loose  or  pasted.     Many  have  noticed  that  interleaved  books  in 


ORIGINAL    INVESTIGATION  271 

libraries  often  have  a  few  entries  on  the  first  few  sheets,  which 
are  then  left  completely  blank. 

For  many  special  purposes  it  is  convenient  to  make  one's 
own  manuscript  books  by  fastening  together  sheets  of  folded 
paper  either  by  stitching,  or  by  simply  making  holes  and 
putting  a  piece  of  thin  string  through,  by  which  the  paper  is 
less  liable  to  be  torn ;  the  back  may  be  strengthened  by 
pasting  on  a  narrow  strip  of  cloth. 


Principles  of  Collecting 

Collect  everything  at  first. — In  working  at  a  text,  for 
the  first  few  pages  one  should,  as  a  general  rule,  collect  every- 
thing. If  the  collections  are  for  a  dictionary,  every  word 
should  be  noted,  with,  of  course,  such  exceptions  as  common 
sense  dictates,  such  as  the  conjunction  mid.  After  a  time,  the 
text  should  be  read  over  again  cursorily,  and  the  method  of 
collection  for  the  future  carefully  considered  and  methodically 
planned  out. 

Collect  mechanically  at  first. — The  work  should  also 
be  done  mechanically  at  first.  No  a  priori  generalizations  should 
be  allowed  to  interfere  with  the  first  aim  of  the  investigator, 
that  is,  gathering  together  enough  material  to  form  the  basis  of 
sound  deductions. 

When  a  certain  definite  amount  of  material  has  been  collected, 
or  when  the  most  important  texts  have  been  gone  through,  the 
investigator  may  well  pause  and  review  his  gains  from  a  higher 
and  freer  point  of  view,  lest  prolonged  drudgery  and  impracti- 
cable ideas  of  fullness  or  exhaustivity  of  collection  lead  him  into 
working  on  a  scale  which  will  make  it  impossible  for  him  to 
complete  his  enterprise  within  reasonable  time,  until  at  last  he 
sinks  into  a  monomaniac  machine  incapable  of  any  higher  work. 
It  should  never  be  forgotten  that  it  is  much  easier  to  heap  up 
material  than  to  utilize  it.  It  is  easy  for  the  dictionary-compiler 
to  brag  of  the  tons  of  material,  the  millions  of  slips  that  have 
been  collected  for  him,  but  when  it  comes  to  sorting  these  slips 
according  to  the  meanings  of  the  words,  and  weighing  the 
evidence  of  each,  he  often  wishes  he  had  started  with  a  ton 


272     THE   PRACTICAL   STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

or  two  less.     Let  us,  then,  take  warning  by  Browning's  gram- 
marian— 

'  That  low  man  seeks  a  little  thing  to  do, 
Sees  it  and  does  it  : 
This  high  man,  with  a  great  thing  to  pursue, 
Dies  ere  he  knows  it.J 

Let  us  be  low  men — at  least  at  first. 

Classification. — We  have  arrived,  then,  at  the  stage  of  a 
logical  classification  of  a  moderate  and  reasonable  amount  of 
material  which,  without  pretending  to  be  exhaustive,  may  be 
relied  on  for  giving  a  sufficient  number  of  examples  to  illustrate 
the  general  principles  we  are  investigating.  The  ideal  for  a 
dictionary  would  be  to  have  enough  examples  of  the  rarer 
words  and  rather  more  than  enough  of  the  very  common 
words. 

If  our  classification  is  partly  arbitrary — as  in  an  alphabetic 
dictionary — then  the  classification  of  the  materials  will  be  partly 
mechanical.  The  logical  classification  will  then  consist  mainly 
in  arranging  the  quotations  under  the  meanings  expressed  by 
the  head-words.  If  the  quotations  are  intended  to  form  the 
foundation  of  a  syntax,  then  the  classification  will  probably  be 
purely  logical  from  the  beginning. 

In  all  logical  classifications  the  investigator  should  proceed 
cautiously  at  first,  so  as  not  to  start  with  prejudices  or  hastily 
formed  generalizations.  The  material  should  at  first  be  sorted 
only  into  definitely  marked  off  main  groups  which  interfere 
with  one  another  as  little  as  possible. 

At  first,  the  language  should  be  explained  as  far  as  possible 
out  of  itself.  There  should  be  no  comparison  with  cognate 
languages  till  this  has  been  done.  Otherwise  the  investigator 
runs  the  risk  of  importing  into  the  language  tendencies  which 
do  not  really  belong  to  it,  and  so  missing,  perhaps,  some 
explanation  which  would  otherwise  be  obvious  to  him. 


CHAPTER   XXI 

MIND-TRAINING;    CLASSICAL  AND  MODERN 
LANGUAGES 

We  will  now  examine  the  grounds  of  the  widely  spread 
assumption  that  ancient  languages — that  is,  Greek  and  Latin — 
are  more  perfect  and  more  highly  developed  in  structure  than 
modern  ones,  and  that  consequently  their  study  is  a  better 
training  for  the  mind. 

Now  that  the  question  of  subordinating  ancient  to  modern 
languages — even  to  the  exclusion  of  Greek  from  the  general 
scheme  of  education — is  being  earnestly  discussed,  and  is 
winning  more  and  more  adherents,  the  statement  of  the  innate 
superiority  of  ancient  languages  is  incessantly  repeated  by  the 
advocates  of  Greek  and  Latin. 

Some  of  them,  indeed,  go  so  far  as  to  hint  that  the  study  of 
modern  languages  is  not  only  useless  as  an  instrument  of 
intellectual  training,  but  is  even  positively  injurious,  as  tending 
to  create  a  superficial  turn  of  mind. 

A  thorough  examination  of  the  reasons  of  these  assumptions, 
and  of  the  real  distinctions  between  ancient  and  modern 
languages,  will  lead  us  to  the  very  opposite  conclusions  in  every 
respect.  We  shall  see  that  the  arguments  of  the  supporters  of 
ancient  languages  are  based  on  an  erroneous  idea  of  the  nature 
of  language,  which  has  been  further  supported  by  the  one- 
sidedly  historical  method  which  has  hitherto  prevailed  in  philo- 
logical investigation. 

The  assertion  of  the  higher  development  of  ancient  languages 
may  be  reduced  to  the  more  precise  one  that  ancient  languages 
have  a  more  copious  grammar  than  modern  ones.  The  com- 
parison of  the  two  extremes,  Greek  and  English,  has  often 
prompted  the  remark  that  English  has  'no  grammar.'  And, 
indeed,  if  we  compare  the  numerous  cases  and  declensions  in 

273  T 


274    THE  PRACTICAL  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

Greek  and  Latin  with  the  English  genitive  and  plural  -s,  and 
the  interminable  complexities  of  the  Greek  verb  in  all  its 
voices,  moods,  tenses,  numbers,  and  persons  with  the  few 
endings  which  make  up  the  inflections  of  the  English  verb,  we 
are  apt  to  accept  the  statement  as  a  matter  of  course. 

But  even  the  most  superficial  observer  cannot  but  be  struck 
by  the  evident  contradiction  implied  in  the  generally  admitted 
fact  that  English  is  one  of  the  most  expressive  and  concise 
languages  that  have  ever  existed,  and  that  ideas  can  be  ex- 
pressed in  it  with  as  much  facility  and  accuracy  as  in  Greek  and 
Latin.  Thus  the  idea,  or  rather  ideas,  expressed  by  the  Latin 
amat  can  be  expressed  with  the  same  brevity  by  the  English  he 
loves,  which,  like  amat,  consists  of  only  two  syllables,  and  with 
greater  precision,  for  the  English  form  denotes  not  only  the 
person,  but  also  the  gender.  Again,  the  Latin  amabit  has  not 
only  a  corresponding  he  will  love  in  English,  but  also  a  shorter 
dissyllable  form  he'll  love. 

The  supposed  superiority  of  the  Latin  over  the  English  forms 
consists  in  the  former  being  able  to  express  their  meaning  with 
one,  while  the  latter  require  two  or  more  words.  But  the 
distinction  is  really  a  purely  graphic  one.  The  actual  spoken 
language  admits  no  division  into  words,  its  lowest  unit  being 
the  sentence,  within  whose  limits  there  is  no  division  or  pause 
of  any  kind.  Historically  considered,  moreover,  the  Latin 
amat  is  really  two  words,  as  much  as  its  English  representative, 
the  final  t  being  originally  a  pronoun  signifying  '  he,'  '  she,'  or 
'  it/  and  it  is  only  reasons  of  practical  convenience  that  prevent 
us  from  writing  am  at  or  ama  t  as  two,  and  heloves  as  one  word. 

It  may,  of  course,  be  urged  that  the  ^  of  loves  is  historically 
the  same  ending  as  the  Latin  -t,  and  consequently  that  he 
loves  is  really  three  words,  but  this  does  not  apply  to  /  love. 
Besides,  these  historical  views  lie  outside  of  the  practical  ques- 
tion, and  the  s  of  loves  is  in  English  practically  nothing  but  a 
fossilized  archaism. 

The  really  essential  difference  between  amat  and  he  loves  is 
that  in  the  former  the  pronominal  element  is  expressed  by  a 
suffix,  in  the  latter  by  a  prefix.  The  end  of  a  word  being  more 
hurried  over  and  slurred  than  the  beginning,  it  naturally  follows 
that  in  those  languages  which  express  general  relations,  such 
as  the  persons  of  verbs  or  the  cases  of  nouns,  by  means  of 
suffixed  words  or  syllables,  these  elements  will  be  much  more 
liable  to  various  phonetic  changes  and  shortenings,  which  will 


MIND-TRAINING  275 

vary  greatly  according  to  the  sounds  which  precede  them,  as 
when  the  s  of  the  nominative  in  Greek  is  preserved  in  dnax  but 
dropped  in  daimon,  lengthening  the  preceding  vowel.  Hence 
have  arisen  the  varied  and  complex  inflections  of  the  ancient 
languages. 

English,  on  the  other  hand,  prefers  to  denote  general  relations 
by  prefixes,  which  are  not  liable  to  be  modified,  or  incorporated 
into  the  root-word.  The  practical  result  in  writing  is  that  most 
English  modifiers  can  be  written  as  separate  words,  and  re- 
garded as  such,  even  when  their  meanings  are  quite  as  abstract 
as  those  of  the  inflections  of  the  old  languages.  The  preposition 
of,  for  instance,  in  of  a  man  is  quite  as  abstract  as  the  is 
in  Latin  hominis,  and,  like  it,  is  absolutely  unmeaning  when 
separated  from  its  noun,  although  the  accident  of  its  being 
written  as  an  independent  word  blinds  us  to  the  fact.  The 
real  functional  distinction  between  the  two  is  that  while  of  is 
always  perfectly  distinct  and  recognizable  in  all  its  combinations, 
the  Latin  -is  is  both  ambiguous  in  itself,  being  used  to  express 
a  number  of  other  cases  as  well,  and  is  only  one  of  a  large 
number  of  means  of  denoting  the  same  case,  as  may  be  seen  by 
comparing  the  endings  of  hominis,  mensae,  dominl,  do?nus,  which 
have  not  a  single  sound  in  common.  What  must  strike  an 
impartial  observer  is  the  waste  of  power  involved  in  employing 
so  many  forms,  most  of  which  have  at  the  same  time  a  number 
of  other  vague  and  contradictory  meanings,  to  express  an  idea 
which  in  a  modern  language  like  English  can  be  expressed  by  a 
single  unambiguous  word. 

By  the  side  of  their  useless  complexity  of  inflection,  ancient 
languages  show  a  remarkable  vagueness  of  thought,  both  in 
grammar  and  vocabulary.  Compare  the  extreme  vagueness  of 
the  meanings  of  the  half-a-dozen  cases  in  Greek  and  Latin  with 
the  precision  of  the  numerous  English  prepositions  which  corre- 
spond to  them.  The  same  want  of  differentiation  is  shown  in  the 
vocabulary  as  well.  Even  in  those  cases  in  which  an  ancient 
language  has  a  considerable  number  of  words  to  express  a  given 
group  of  abstract  ideas,  it  often  happens  that  each  single  word 
runs  through  and  exhausts  the  whole  series  of  ideas,  so  that 
nothing  at  all  is  gained  by  the  fullness  of  the  vocabulary.  In 
such  a  case  a  modern  language  utilizes  each  word  to  express  a 
definite  idea. 

The  traditional  character  of  ancient  languages  often  leads 
them  into  downright  absurdities,  such  as  the  use  of  grammatical 


276    THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF   LANGUAGES 

genders,  which,  strange  to  say,  are  still  retained  more  or  less  in 
all  the  Aryan  languages  of  Europe  with  the  exception  of  English. 
In  fact,  there  can  be  no  question  that  the  highly  inflected  Aryan 
languages  are  in  many  respects  far  more  irrational  than  those 
which  stand  on  a  lower  scale  of  development,  and  that  such  a 
language  as  English  owes  its  superiority  as  a  means  of  expression 
in  a  great  degree  to  developments  which  have  many  analogies 
to  those  of  non-Aryan  and  even  savage  languages. 

The  statement  that  English  has  little  or  no  grammar  simply 
means  that  the  grammatical  structure  of  English  is  so  regular  and 
transparent  that  a  very  moderate  amount  of  analysis  is  enough 
to  enable  the  learner  to  find  his  way  through  it.  But  regularity 
and  symmetry  are  by  no  means  inconsistent  with  complexity, 
and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  English  is  one  of  the  most  complex 
languages  that  has  ever  existed.  If  grammar  be  defined  as  the 
expression  of  general  relations,  whether  that  expression  be 
effected  by  suffixes  or  prefixes,  by  inflections  or  prepositions 
and  auxiliaries,  then  English  has  the  most  copious  grammar  of 
any  in  the  world.  The  difference  between  the  complexity  of 
an  ancient  and  of  a  modern  language  is  that  that  of  the  former 
is  to  a  great  extent  unmeaning  and  useless,  while  that  of  the 
latter  implies  a  correspondingly  full  and  minute  analysis  of  the 
ideas  expressed  by  it. 

Of  course,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  all  languages  are 
extremely  defective,  if  compared  with  an  ideal  standard,  and 
that  consequently  the  difference  between  them  can  only  be  one 
of  degree ;  but  if  those  languages  are  the  most  rational  which 
express  ideas  most  clearly,  simply,  and  regularly,  there  can  be  no 
question  of  the  superiority  of  the  modern  languages  in  ration- 
ality, and  consequently  as  a  means  of  intellectual  training  also. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  mechanical  acquisition  of  irrational 
distinctions  of  form,  and  familiarizing  oneself  with  vague  and 
loose  expressions  of  thought,  is  the  best  training  for  the  mind, 
then  there  can  be  no  question  of  the  superiority  of  ancient 
languages. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  defects  of  ancient  languages  are 
compensated  by  many  real  advantages,  although  these  advan- 
tages have  nothing  to  do  with  intellectual  training.  One 
superiority  of  most  ancient  languages  is  the  simplicity,  clear- 
ness, and  sonorousness  of  their  phonetic  structure.  The  very 
vagueness  of  their  meanings,  again,  although  in  itself  a  serious 
defect,  brings  with  it  great  freshness,  freedom,  and  picturesque- 


MIND-TRAINING  277 

ness  of  metaphor,  which,  together  with  their  fullness  of  sound, 
eminently  fit  them  for  poetry  and  oratory,  and  for  aesthetic 
purposes  generally. 

The  assimilations,  contractions,  and  other  phonetic  changes 
of  modern  languages  not  only  diminish  their  harmony  and 
fullness  of  sound,  but  also  make  them  indistinct  by  diminishing 
the  individuality  of  the  older  distinctions,  or  even,  as  is  so  often 
the  case  in  English,  by  confounding  originally  distinct  words 
under  one  common  form.  But  even  these  defects  do  not  affect 
the  value  of  modern  languages  as  instruments  of  intellectual 
training. 

The  defects  of  the  inflectional  languages  are  most  clearly 
shown  in  those  cases  in  which  an  inflectional  system  has  been 
retained  after  it  has  been  made  superfluous  by  the  development 
of  prefixes,  auxiliaries,  etc.,  and  a  fixed  word-order.  Modern 
German  is  a  marked  example  of  such  a  transition  language. 
Although  it  has  adopted  the  fixed  word-order  of  a  modern 
language,  and  makes  an  extensive  use  of  auxiliaries,  prepositions, 
etc.,  it  still  retains  many  of  the  old  inflections,  together  with  the 
three  grammatical  genders.  The  result  is  that  while  in  some  cases 
the  old  inflections  still  express  an  independent  meaning,  as 
when  the  distinction  between  the  English  in  and  into  is  expressed 
by  in  with  the  dative  and  accusative  respectively,  in  others  they 
are  superfluous,  the  idea  being  already  fully  expressed  by  means 
analogous  to  those  employed  by  such  a  language  as  English. 
Such  distinctions,  for  instance,  as  those  between  guter  and  gutc 
in  ein  guter  mann  and  der  gutc  mann  are  really  quite  useless, 
being  fully  expressed  by  the  ein  and  the  der.  Again,  in  the  old 
languages  the  distinctions  of  grammatical  gender,  together  with 
the  laws  of  concord,  allowed  the  separation  of  adjectives  from 
the  nouns  to  which  they  belong,  which,  although  of  little  use 
for  purposes  of  expression,  yet  added  greatly  to  the  harmony 
and  picturesqueness  of  the  language  by  causing  variety,  and 
especially  by  preventing  the  repetition  of  the  same  heavy  endings 
close  together ;  but  in  German,  with  its  fixed  word-order,  they 
are  almost  useless,  and,  indeed,  the  agreement  between  adjective 
and  noun  is  abandoned  when  the  adjective  stands  predicatively 
— curiously  enough,  in  the  only  position  in  which  it  would  be 
of  any  use — although  it  is  superfluously  retained  in  the  attribu- 
tive position  of  the   adjective. 

Such  a  language  as  Swedish,  on  the  other  hand,  with  its 
simplicity,  its  clearness  and  harmony  of  phonetic  structure,  and 


278     THE   PRACTICAL  STUDY   OF  LANGUAGES 

its  few,  but  clear,  simple,  symmetrical  inflections,  really  combines, 
to  a  great  extent,  the  advantages  of  ancient  and  modern 
languages.  German  has  also  the  antique  clearness  and  sonor- 
ousness of  sound,  in  which  it  is  infinitely  superior  to  English 
and  French,  which  certainly  carry  off  the  palm  for  simplicity 
and  precision,  English,  again,  being  unquestionably  foremost  in 
many-sidedness  and  power. 

In  comparing  the  ancient  languages  among  themselves,  it  must 
be  borne  in  mind  that  Greek,  owing  to  the  greater  intellectual 
activity  of  those  who  spoke  it,  and  the  consequent  necessity  of 
precision  and  many-sidedness  of  expression,  is  in  many  respects 
more  modern  in  structure  than  Latin.  The  excessive  use  of  the 
article  and  the  heaping  of  particles  in  Greek  are  characteristic 
contrasts  with  the  Latin  usages. 

It  must  further  be  remembered  that  archaism  of  structure  by 
no  means  implies  that  the  language  is  a  dead  one.  We  have  in 
Russian  an  example  of  a  living  language  of  great  literary, 
social,  and  political  importance,  which  vies  in  inflectional 
complexity  with  Latin  and  Greek  ;  and  it  is  a  question  whether 
a  study  of  it  would  not  prove  as  good  a  practical  training  in 
the  use  of  an  inflectional  language  as  that  of  the  classical 
languages. 

Of  course,  if  modern  languages  are  to  be  studied  at  all,  they 
must  be  studied  properly.  The  superficial  study  of  modern 
languages  certainly  tends  to  deteriorate  the  mind,  just  as  every 
other  superficial  study  does,  but  it  is  equally  possible  to  study 
dead  languages  superficially,  as  also  in  a  narrow  and  unscientific 
spirit. 


APPENDIX 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  following  notices  do  not  aim  at  any  fullness,  but  are  merely 
intended  as  a  first  guide  to  those  who  wish  to  pursue  the  subject 
further.  Many  of  the  books  here  given  themselves  contain  more 
or  less  full  bibliographies. 

General  Works 

Paul,  H.  :  Principien  der  Sprachgeschichte.  Halle,  2i886. 
[Purely  theoretical  and  abstract.] 

Von  der  Gabelentz,  G.  :  die  Sprachwissenschaft.  Leipzig,  1891. 
[Deals  with  the  practical  as  well  as  the  theoretical  study  of 
languages.] 

Storm,  J.  :  Englische  Philologie.  Leipzig,  2i8g2.  [Purely 
practical  ;  gives  incidentally  much  information  about  general 
phonetics,  together  with  many  details  about  other  languages 
besides  English.] 

Periodicals 

Maitre  phon^tique,  la  ;  organe  de  1' Association  phone'tique  des 
professeurs  de  langues  vivantes,  edited  by  P.  Passy.  Address  : 
Fonetik,  Bourg-la-Reine,  France. 

Phonetische  Studien,  Zeitschrift  fiir  wissenschaftliche  und 
praktische  Phonetik,  edited  by  W.  Vietor,  I -VI.  Marburg,  1888-93. 
Continued  in  the  form  of  an  Appendix  to  die  Neueren  Sprachen, 
Marburg,  1894,  foil.  [This  publication,  like  the  previous  one, 
is  not  confined  to  phonetics,  but  contains  articles  of  a  wider 
linguistic  interest,  both  theoretical  and  practical.] 

Modern  Language  Quarterly  of  Language  and  Literature, 
edited  by  H.  Frank  Heath,  London. 

Phonetics 

Sweet,  H. :  Primer  of  Phonetics.     Oxford,  1890. 

Sketch  of  Phonetics  in  Primer  of  Historical  English 

Gratnmar.     Oxford,  1893. 

Grandgent,  C.  H.  :  German  and  English  Sounds.  Boston, 
U.S.A.,  1893.     [Very  good  diagrams  of  the  tongue-positions.] 

Sievers,  E.  :  Grundziige  der  Phonetik.   Leipzig,  4i893.    [Deals 


280  APPENDIX 

■with  phonetics  mainly  from  the  point  of  view  of  comparative 
philology.] 

Vietor,  W.  :  Elemente  der  Phonetik.    Leipzig,  3i  893. 

Jespersen,  O. :  Fonetik.  Copenhagen,  1897.  [Not  yet  com- 
pleted.] 

Passy,  P. :  Les  sons  du  Francais.     Paris,  4i897. 

Michaelis  et  Passy :  Dictionnaire  Phone'tique  de  la  langue 
Franchise,  1897. 

Hempl,  G.  :  German  orthography  and  phonology.  Boston, 
U.S.  A.,  1897. 

General  Method 

Widgery,  W.  H. :  The  Teaching  of  Languages  in  Schools. 
London,  1888. 

Vietor,  W. :  Der  Sprachunterricht  muss  umkehren  !  Heilbronn, 
2i886. 

Frarike,  F.  :  Die  praktische  Spracherlernung.    Heilbronn,  1884. 

Klinghardt,  H.  :  Ein  Jahr  Erfahrungen  mit  der  Neuen  Methode. 
Marburg,  1888. 

Drei  Weitere  Jahre  Erfahrungen  mit  der  Neuen 

Methode.    Marburg,  1892. 

Storm,  J.  :  Om  en  forbedret  Undervisning  i  Levende  Sprog 
(Universitets-  og  Skoleannaler  II.).     Christiania. 

Brekke,  K. :  Gouins  Methode  (Univ.-  og  Skoleannaler,  1894). 
Christiania. 

Western,  A.  :  Om  Undervisningen  i  Nyere  Sprog.  Christiania, 
1885. 

Text-books 

Sweet,  H.  :  Elementarbuch  des  gesprochenen  Englisch.  Oxford, 
3i89i. 

Primer  of  Spoken  English.    Oxford,  2i895. 

Passy,  P.  :  Ele'mans  d'Anglais  parld.    Paris,  2i887. 

Brekke,  K.  :  Laerebog  i  Engelsk  for  folkskolen.  Christiania, 
1892.  

Beyer  und  Passy:  Elementarbuch  des  gesprochenen  Franzo- 
sisch.    Cothen,  1893. 
Passy,  J.  :  Chrestomathie  Franchise.    Paris,  1897. 
Pranke,  F.  :  Phrases  de  tous  des  jours.     Leipzig,  6i893. 
Storm,  F.  :  Dialogues  Franc,  ais.     Copenhagen,  1887. 


Sweet,  H.  :  Anglo-Saxon  Primer.    Oxford,  7i893. 
First  Steps  in  Anglo-Saxon.     Oxford,  1897. 


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pupils  of  average  high-school  age  as  to  the  needs  of  students  of 
mature  age.  With  it  more  rapid  results  can  be  obtained  than 
with  any  other  grammar." — Carl  F.  Lange,  High  School,  Manistee. 

"The  Thomas's  German  Grammar  I  consider  the  best  work- 
ing grammar  I  have  had  in  my  department,  and  it  is  a  delight  to 
use  it." — Marie  F.  Kapp,  Professor  in  Smith   College. 

"  For  the  study  of  modern  German  the  book  has  no  equal." 
—  W.  H.  Perkinson,  Professor  in  the   University  of  Virginia. 

"  The  best  working  German  Grammar  in  the  English  lan- 
guage. ...  It  is  based  on  sound  pedagogical  principles  ;  it  pre- 
sents living  German  ;  it  will  create  and  cultivate  in  the  student  a 
proper  Sprachgefiihl." — Charles  B.  Wilson,  Professor  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Iowa,  in    The  School  Review. 

A  circular  of  the  above  book  containing /urther  comments  and  an  extended 
list  0/  representative  Schools  and  Colleges  using  it  mailed  free  on  application. 

HENRY  HOLT  &  CO.     379  Wabash  Ave. ^Chicago 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA     001  351  783 


CENTRAL  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
University  of  California,  San  Diego 

DATE  DUE 

DEC  1  0  tQ7c 

APR  2 1  1983 

a  39 

UCSD  Libr. 

mm 


mm 


'iwm 


